Pay panel has yet to meet

ALBANY, N.Y. _ A state compensation committee has less than three months to decide if state legislators, statewide elected officials and department heads should get a pay raise next year.

The state budget approved by the Legislature and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo created a five-member committee to set new levels of compensation, non-salary benefits, and cost of living increases. The committee, which is required to hold at least one public hearing, has yet to meet.

Under state law, legislators receive a base pay of $79,500, the attorney general and comptroller are at $151,500, and department heads collect between and $90,800 and $136,000. The last increase for state legislators went into effect in 1999, when their leadership stipends were also bumped up.

The budget named state Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli, New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, SUNY Board of Trustees Chair Carl McCall, CUNY Board of Trustees Chair Bill Thompson and New York state Chief Judge Janet DiFiore to the committee.

DiFiore, citing constitutional issues, declined her appointment; and state law doesn't provide for a replacement on the commission, which requires a majority vote to act.

Cuomo has long lamented the salaries paid to his agency heads, arguing that they aren't comparable to what is available in the private sector.

"We're trying to get quality people into state government and frankly, we are wholly non-competitive," he said in March. "So I have said for years that I support raising the pay for the executive officials and the legislative branch."

The governor's salary of $179,000 is set by the Legislature and is outside the scope of the new committee.

State legislators in New York City and the surrounding suburbs have led the charge for a pay raise, with Senate Majority Leader John J. Flanagan, a Long Island Republican, and Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie, a Bronx Democrat, pushing the issue.

In 2016, a salary commission considered giving state legislators a $37,400 raise, which represented a comparable percentage increase to what state employees had received since 1999. The proposal was scrapped when lawmakers refused to acquiesce to demands from the governor's appointees on the commission that they hold a special session to enact ethics reforms.

In determining whether a salary increase is warranted, the committee is tasked with considering the economic climate, inflation, salaries for elected officials in other states, job performance and other factors. They can also authorize three years of cost of living adjustments.

Any recommendations from the committee will carry the weight of law, and the state Legislature would need to return in a special session to circumvent their decisions.

A meeting of the committee was scheduled for July, according to the state comptroller's office, but it was canceled. McCall, a close ally of the governor, is overseeing the scheduling of meetings.

One month ago, McCall's executive assistant told the Times Union they were "currently in the process of scheduling this meeting with the members." On Tuesday, she said they were "still working on it."

The commission that ultimately balked at authorizing a raise held its first meeting in February and conducted its third public hearing by Sept. 22.

Speaking on July 3 to reporters, DiNapoli said he didn't know what to expect when the committee eventually met. "I assume the first meeting will be to say, 'This commission, that we were all thrown into and nobody talked to us about, what are we going to do with it?'" he said.

DiNapoli was confident the committee would come up with recommendations and said he wouldn't play any role in setting the salary for the state comptroller.

In 1998, the last time a pay raise was authorized for state legislators, the enacting legislation also increased salaries for judges and executive agency heads and boosted legislative stipends. In conjunction with this bill, state legislators approved a bill to delay legislative paychecks when the state budget is late.

Both bills were supported by DiNapoli and Stringer, who were serving in the Assembly at the time.

David.Lombardo(at)timesunion.com - 518-454-5427 - Twitter: (at)poozer87