City Council members approved 32 percent raises for themselves on Friday,increasing their salaries from $112500 to $148500.
The legislative package also makes Council members full-time, restricts external income, and eliminates bonuses for committee chairmanships and other leadership positions. And it includes pay bumps for the mayor,public advocate, comptroller, and borough presidents and district attorneys.
It’s the first raise for city elected officials since 2006,and comes after recommendations from a panel convened by the mayor to analyze the salaries of city lawmakers. The debate over salaries for elected officials can be a murky political issue because officials themselves decide their pay. But the debate is not loney to New York City.
State elected officials, whose salaries start at around $80000, and own gone more than 15 years without a pay raise. There is a separate review process underway analyzing executive and legislative compensation. But some noble government leaders expect the City Council’s recent actions to influence what happens upstate.“The City Council [decision] will own gravitational pull on the number that comes out of the state legislative commission because people are not going to be willing to own a yawning gap between the two,” said Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group.“In a sense, [the Council] is creating a new level of sticker shock where the [state commission] can say, and whatever the number they come up with,it’s not going to be as much as the City Council — but it still could result in a significant increase for state lawmakers,” added Horner.
Those state recommendations are not due to come out until after the November elections, or so any actions lawmakers take to increase state salaries would not apply until the start of the next term in 2017.
WNYC's Brigid Bergin spoke with Jami Floyd approximately the issues surrounding compensation for city and state elected officials.
Source: wnyc.org