The following is a WCBSTV report:
While trying to earn a reputation as a penny pincher, Gov. David Paterson has okayed hundreds of thousands of dollars in staff pay raises.
“The well has run dry,” Paterson said back on Nov. 12. “All areas of government are going to have to suffer some of these cuts.
Then back on Feb. 3, Paterson reiterated the dire situation facing the state.
“Every New Yorker is going to be asked to share some of these cuts,” Paterson said.
For Paterson, the saying “do what I say not what I do” has new meaning. While preaching fiscal austerity — and instituting a hiring freeze — he has managed to find the bucks to give 17 top aides raises totaling more than $250,000.
“What is he thinking? I mean he wants give-backs from all kinds of workers. He’s talking about raising taxes. It just doesn’t look good,” Baruch College’s Douglas Muzzio said.
For example, he gave a confidential assistant a $40,000 raise, an assistant secretary a $42,000 raise, his chief of staff an $18,000 raise, and an assistant appointments officer a $17,000 raise.
“Come on. It’s money. It’s costing the public and, again, even if the amounts aren’t huge the symbolism is really, really poor,” Muzzio added.
Documents obtained by CBS 2 HD show that 55 other employees from agencies under the governor’s control have also received raises since the hiring freeze was implemented in August. This as the governor is demanding that 130,000 state workers give up a 3 percent raise already in their contracts.
This comes on the heels of disclosures that the governor had the state shell out nearly $20,000 for hotel rooms so he and three aides could attend the Barack Obama presidential inauguration.
A spokesman for the governor said the raises were given to people who received promotions.
(Source: WCBSTV)
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7 Responses
What’s the big deal??? The liberals in congress gave themselves NINETY THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS for their petty cash accounts when they voted for the Porkulus Bill! That’s close to 50 MILLION BUCKS.
Bottom line is all the states beginning with CA will run to DC when they can’t get close on their annual budget.
see this is what gets my goat. He talks of copays for EI, of lowering funding for low income families and he raises those who are already rolling in dough……
Sorry…this is NOT my man!
A more likely explanation is that New Yorkers gave the Democrats control over both houses of the state legislature for the first time since the mid-1960s, and that New York is under Democratic control for the first time since the previous Depression (in the mid-1960s, there was a Republican governor). It was very unwise, perhaps, for New Yorkers to do so.
How Patterson can hand out raises all by himself seems dubious, since he has to act according to an appropriation for the legislature.
Crooked Democrat politicians at their best
Dont Forget about the SODA TAX what he want to raise the taxes on non diet sodas.
Let’s not be petty!
What’s 250 Grand amidst a Trillion-Dollar ripoff “Stimulus” package that makes Bernie Madoff look like a Piker!
The salary of the chief executive (OR POLITICIAN):
“The salary of the chief executive of the large corporation is not a market award for achievement. It is frequently in the nature of a warm personal gesture by the individual to himself”
– J K Galbraith – Annals of an Abiding Liberal