The New York State Senate and Assembly voted to raise their pay by 29 percent to an annual base salary of $142,000. The salary increase from the current $110,000 base pay will make New York lawmakers the highest-paid of any state, surpassing California legislators, who receive $119,000 a year.
“Democrats in the state Senate and Assembly voted overwhelmingly Thursday to give themselves a record raise and hike their taxpayer-funded pay to $142,000 a year.
The early Christmas gift… to themselves, makes Albany the highest-paid state legislature in the nation — despite ongoing inaction on critical issues including New York’s controversial bail reform law and the Big Apple’s migrant crisis.
The 29% boost to their current $110,000 pay will also result in wages more than three times higher than the median $43,208 earned by average New Yorkers.
Lawmakers will also be allowed to continue raking in unlimited outside income until 2025, when it would generally be capped at $35,000.
The $32,000 pay raise would go into effect January 1st if Gov. Kathy Hochul signs off on the plan passed during a hastily scheduled, lame-duck special session of the Legislature in Albany.
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New York State Capital, Albany. |
The Senate voted 32-23 in favor of the raise, which was later approved 81-52 by the state Assembly.
The bills passed largely along party lines, with most Democrats in favor and Republicans opposed.
Under state law, Hochul, a Democrat, has 30 days after the end of the special session to sign or veto the raises.
In the case of a veto, they could still be enacted into law if two-thirds of both chambers vote to override it.
The governor’s office didn’t immediately respond when asked what Hochul would do.
During debate in the state Senate, Sen. George Borrello (R-Jamestown) accused his Democratic counterparts of misplaced priorities.
‘Are we fixing criminal justice reforms? We’re not doing that. Are we fixing the unemployment insurance fund? It’s bankrupt. We’re not coming back to do that’, he said. ‘We’ve come back a couple days before Christmas to raise our salaries’.
Outgoing state Sen. Elijah Reichlin-Melnick (D-Nanuet) broke ranks to vote against the raises, saying: ‘Inflation has hit everyone and legislators increasing their pay at a time when people are feeling the pain of economic pressure doesn’t feel right’.
The Post exclusively reported that Hochul tried to tie the proposed pay raises to tougher bail rules for defendants charged with violent felonies, domestic offenses and hate crimes.
But she gave up after state Sen. John Mannion (D-Syracuse) won reelection by 10 votes Monday following a recount of his tight race with Republican Rebecca Shiroff.
Mannion’s victory extended the Democrats’ veto-proof supermajorities in both the Senate and Assembly.
Former three-term Republican Gov. George Pataki told The Post that he’d veto the raises anyway if he were still in office, saying lawmakers ‘should be looking to give the Christmas presents to the people of New York, not themselves’.
‘Especially a legislature that has decimated the state’s criminal justice laws and spent irresponsibly and raised taxes to where New York City residents are the highest-taxed people in the state’, he said.
And veteran Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf also said Hochul’s failed deal over bail reform had effectively neutered her just days before her first full term in office.
‘The legislative guys are laughing. They can get away with whatever they want’, he said. ‘They’re rolling her and they’re getting away with it‘.
Sheinkopf also said the blunder could cost Hochul politically down the road.
‘It’s tough economic times and if crime continues, people aren’t going to blame the legislature, they’ll blame the governor’, he said. ‘The voters don’t know who the legislature is but the voters remember the governor’.
The proposed pay hike would vault New York’s base salary for lawmakers past current No. 1 California, where it’s $119,000, although the Golden State also pays up to $214 per day for attending sessions of the legislature, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
In the District of Columbia, council members are paid more than lawmakers in any state: $152,813 each, with $210,000 for the chair, according to the NCSL.
State lawmakers’ current salaries were set by a special commission in 2018, which increased their annual pay from $79,500, a 38% hike.
They also got an identical, 38% raise in 1998 when their salaries rose from $57,500 a year.
The 2018 plan included two more raises that would have resulted in annual pay of $130,000.
But those raises were struck down after a conservative group, the Government Justice Center, argued in court that unelected officials couldn’t impose a 15% limit on lawmakers’ outside income that was tied to their additional raises”. -Carl Campanile, Bernadette Hogan, and Bruce Golding, New York Post
Lawmakers will also be allowed to continue raking in unlimited outside income until 2025, when it would generally be capped at $35,000, with exceptions.
Unfortunately, the bill does not prohibit outside income from entities where the legislator would have a fiduciary responsibility to a client.
Other exceptions to the $35,000 outside income cap included copyright royalties and similar forms of intellectual property rights, income from state retirement plans, private pensions or similar plans, and income from investment and capital gains.
As it happens, $35,000 is equal to the amount state and local government retirees can earn while also collecting a state pension.
"Albany’s One Party Ruling Class continues to put their own misplaced priorities first", Senate Republican Leader Robert Ortt said in a statement.
To push the pay raises through in a pre-holiday special session makes for pretty terrible optics, especially when the state is already faced with affordability, infrastructure, and homelessness crises.
Just in time for Christmas, when New Yorkers are feeling the pressure amid national economic struggles, the nation's best-paid legislature still exhibits a “spare no expense” style of attitude by rewarding themselves with salary increases and welcoming an increasing number of Ukrainian refugees throughout the state, particularly in the poverty-stricken Syracuse area.