Gotham Gazette

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pay commission

pay commission

  • After Court Rulings, Unclear Future for Push to Restrict State Legislators' Outside Income

    Cuomo legislative leaders

    Cuomo, center, with 2018 legislative majority leaders (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)


    After two years of legislative negotiations, commission reports, and lawsuits, parts of a planned salary increase for state officials remain up in the air, and the fate of long-sought restrictions on legislators’ outside income sits entirely with state lawmakers themselves.

    The raises and corresponding outside income limitations were made by a commission created by the governor and Legislature created to alter the laws dictating

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  • How We Got Here & Where To Go: The Centuries Old Legislative Pay Debate in New York

    gov cuomo carlheastie

    (photo: Office of the Governor - Kevin P. Coughlin)


    New Yorkers have been upset by state legislators’ compensation for more than 200 years. At the 1821 constitutional convention, Ezekiel Bacon, a former member of the Assembly and of Congress, called the pay issue “…a hobby horse of ambitious demagogues and peddling politicians, that caused the great questions that affected the vital interest of the state too often to be overlooked.” The current debate is nothing new. We’ve never liked how much legislators are paid. We’ve never liked how the matter is

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  • Commission Recommends Pay Increases and Ethics Reforms for State Legislators

    senatechamberalbany2

    (Photo via Wiki Commons)


    Statewide elected officials, legislators and agency heads are slated to get pay raises next year following recommendations issued Thursday by a four-member panel that was created in this year’s state budget.

    The New York State Compensation Committee voted on Thursday to raise the salaries of legislators for the first time in nearly twenty years, as well as for the four statewide offices and for executive agency commissioners. The committee will publicly release a report and deliver it to Governor Andrew Cuomo and the State Legislature on Monday

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  • Created in Budget, State Pay Commission Off to Slow, Rocky Start

    Carl McCall Cuomo

    Carl McCall (photo: Governor's Office)


    The pay commission tasked with proposing salary adjustments of New York State legislators, statewide elected officials, and top executive branch employees, created in this year’s enacted budget, appears to be in a state of disarray.

    The appointed chair of the commission, New York State Chief Judge Janet DiFiore, announced in May that she could not serve on the commission, citing what she believed to be the unconstitutionality of a judge determining matters that could end up before her in court. She has not been

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