Babylon board OKs more than $425G in pay raises for administrative workers

The Town of Babylon is giving out more than $400,000 in raises this year to administrative employees, more than double what the town has spent in recent years.

The town will pay 42 nonunion employees an additional $439,497 this year. In 2018, the town gave out $188,000 in raises to 8 administrative employees and in 2019 gave out $82,311 to 11 employees. 

The raises, which take effect immediately, were unanimously approved 4-0 last month by the town board. The salary resolution, which does not include names, has been criticized by some as lacking transparency.

Supervisor Rich Schaffer defended the raises and noted that Newsday’s annual payroll analysis showed the town had the lowest average pay among all Long Island towns for the past several years.

“I believed we were in good enough shape financially to be able to provide increases to those who haven’t seen increases and for particular people … if they were taking on more responsibility or new projects, to adjust the salaries to be commensurate with their work,” Schaffer said.

Of the 42 employees, 19 received raises of more than $10,000, with five receiving more than $20,000. The largest salary increase is to Rachel Scelfo, the town’s planning commissioner, whose salary is expanding by more than $27,000 from $105,078 to $132,605. Scelfo also will receive an $8,500 stipend to serve as the town’s workforce housing coordinator.

Schaffer said since the town combined its downtown revitalization office with planning, Scelfo had taken on more work, in addition to a “top to bottom” review of all of the department’s codes. She has been with the town for one year.

“I wish I could have paid her more,” Schaffer said. “There’s a lot of work that we’re asking of her … and it’s almost like we’re getting two people in one with Rachel because she not only has the planning experience but as an attorney she also has the legal background.”

The board also approved giving 45 members of various town boards salary raises totaling $129,350. The largest increase among those is for planning board chairman Patrick Halpin, whose salary is rising from $10,500 to $16,000. Schaffer said some of the board positions had not seen raises in more than 15 years.

The salary increases were approved without discussion through a resolution entitled “Adopting the Administrative Salary Plan” that does not list employee names but rather two extensive tables that list job titles, levels and steps.

E.J. McMahon, research director for the fiscally conservative Empire Center think tank, which among other things promotes “the ideals of effective and accountable government,” criticized this method, calling the process “the very opposite of accountability and transparency.”

“The approach they took sure makes it look like they had something they wanted to hide, whether they actually did or not,” McMahon said.

Schaffer said he was aware of the concerns about transparency and was looking to “implement changes based on suggestions made to me."

By Denise M. Bonilla

denise.bonilla@newsday.comdenisebonilla

Denise Bonilla has worked at Newsday since 2003 and covers the Town of Babylon, including the villages of Lindenhurst and Amityville.