Pay-Raise Perils

State lawmakers are trying to figure out if they can get those huge pay hikes without the restrictions set to go with them. We’d be playing the world’s smallest violin, except a real principle is at stake.

The panel that proposed making New York’s legislators the nation’s highest-paid also slashed “lulu” bonuses for lawmakers and limited their outside income to $18,000 come January 2020. (It also tied the pay increases to passing “timely” budgets, a dangerously vague term.)

The package is to go into effect unless the Legislature overrules it by year’s end — but lawsuits may prevent part of it, or all of it.

State Senate GOP leader John Flanagan warns that the bid to cap outside income “would likely be ruled unconstitutional” if challenged. Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie has his own doubts — especially since the panel wasn’t granted clear powers to impose some of these reforms.

Gov. Cuomo merely suggests lawmakers avoid those issues by passing legislation to codify the recommendations into statute.

Is that enough? The pay-raise commission basically ordered a constitutional change — shifting the Legislature from part-time to full-time. There’s a fair argument for doing that, but not by the fiat of a panel that met a handful of times, even if retroactively OK’d by money-hungry legislators.

This effort to raise lawmakers’ pay without political accountability was a disgrace from the start; it’s almost fitting that it’s turned into a legal morass, too.