Evaluate pay for state workers
State police at work on Long Island Credit: James Carbone
Last month, even as some 900 state workers were facing layoffs, 28 top officers in the State Police got raises of more than $20,000 each.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said he was "shocked" at the hikes, but he shouldn't have been. The State Police raises at the top were driven by a collective bargaining agreement that raised some police majors to $170,756 a year, which would have given them higher pay than some of their bosses - and meant that a promotion to the highest ranks could have entailed a salary cut.
The real problem is that New York has made contractual promises to its many public employees that it simply cannot afford.
Cuomo, who has proposed a pay freeze for the state's nearly 200,000 employees and took a pay cut himself when he became governor, rescinded the raises for the top officers on Friday, an administration official said. But even as they are rolled back, it will be hard to pay superiors less than subordinates for long. It's noteworthy that the governor's nominee to head the State Police will make nearly $35,000 less than some police majors.
While such anomalies get a lot of attention, an even bigger problem is less noticeable: the cost of health insurance, pensions and other benefits for state workers. Clearly it's time for the state to take a harder look at the compensation of its public servants. hN
