SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - Legislators Vote Themselves A Pay Freeze

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

The members of the Suffolk Legislature had a difficult conversation this month on suspending automatic pay increases for four years—a freeze for all 18 of them as well as other top county officials. The measure, authored by Legislator Al Krupski of Cutchogue and co-sponsored by William J. Lindsay III of Oakdale, passed 16-2 after some strong and also some poignant remarks.

It has now gone to County Executive Steve Bellone whose pay would also be impacted. He has scheduled a public hearing starting at 10 a.m. next Thursday, September 28, in Media Room 182 at the H. Lee Dennison Building in Hauppauge. 

Since 1986 Suffolk legislators and other high county officials have gotten automatic yearly salary increases of four percent or the increase in the Consumer Price Index, whichever is lower.

Mr. Krupski, who has declined a cost-of living raise three out of the four years he has been a legislator, in opening the discussion September 6 on the measure—titled “A Local Law to Freeze Salaries of County Elected Officials”—said: “A lot of people work in the private sector and don’t receive automatic increases.” Moreover, considering the “current fiscal condition” of county government—there is a $163 million budget deficit presently—“a four-year-freeze would show that…we recognize the current situation.”

Legislator Kevin McCaffrey of Lindenhurst said “I believe that our fiscal crisis needs to be fixed by a global solution, meaning everybody’s got to be involved in it. It’s got to be the unions, it’s got to be the exempts, it’s got to be the electeds….But I plan on supporting this because I think we need to show the way and we need to take the first step.”

However, Legislator Tom Barraga of West Islip declared: “I certainly understand the symbolism associated with this particular bill, but I will adamantly oppose it.” A long-time member of the State Assembly before becoming a legislator (and serving now for the maximum of 12 years and being term-limited from running for re-election this year), he said “the State Legislature” is a “classic example” of the error of enacting a pay freeze. 

For two decades, he said, there has been a freeze on salaries of members of the Assembly and Senate “and they have been losing for a number of years now, excellent representatives, because they can no longer afford to stay up there” in Albany. “There are very good people up there, all of them deserve raises, but every time they do it, there’s always a group that says, ‘Oh, no, you’re making too much’….The papers are against it, the media is against it.” Members of the Assembly receive $79,500 a year. “But to live in Nassau and Suffolk and being a full-time legislator on $79,500 a year, you can’t do it.”

“So bottom line,” he went on, “if you feel as an individual member that you have to do something along these lines and the salary [of Suffolk legislators] is $100,000, take 95 [$95,000], you’ve made your point. But don’t lay this on 18 members, it’s just the wrong way to go.”

Legislator Rob Trotta of Fort Salonga said “to put this in perspective.” under current contracts the Suffolk County “PBA got and all the [county] police unions got a 3.5% raise every year for eight years at a cost of $400 million.” Mr. Trotta, a retired Suffolk Police detective who has been highly critical of those contracts, said “my point is we are already setting the example that we are taking either the cost of living or below and they’re getting three times that. So I personally think this is nothing more than an election year ploy…It’s ridiculous, absurd…I don’t need the money, I can live without it, but I feel for the other legislators here who are supporting families on it.”

Mr. Krupski responded to Mr. Trotta saying “it’s a small step in the right direction…If you don’t start somewhere, though, you’ll never…get to reducing our budget…It’s a good place to start with ourselves.”

Legislator Rob Colarco of Patchogue said: “I do this as a full-time job. I don’t have another job….I have three little ones…I am fortunate enough to be a county legislator in a county where I have a salary that earns enough that I can do this as a full-time job. And, certainly, my wife has to work, too, but I think that’s the story for most people on Long Island.”

Legislator Sarah Anker of Mount Sinai said that ‘being a single mom with three kids…it’s not easy. But the amount of money we make as a legislator is—it’s substantial. It’s better than most legislative salaries probably in the country.”

Robert Lipp, director of the legislature’s Budget Review Office, reported at the meeting fhat there would be, based on 1.09% automatic pay increases over the past four years, an annual savings of $25,789 with the proposed freeze.