Cuomo salary caps symbolic but logical

Symbols can count as much as economics.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's proposal to cap school superintendents' pay - symbolic as the move may be - resonates among many Long Islanders.

Clearly, the governor means to sound a populistic note among taxpayers. During the campaign he heard many spirited complaints from residents about excess pay in many places.

"We must wake up to the new economic reality that government must be more efficient and cut the cost of bureaucracy," he said in releasing the proposal. "Reducing back-office overhead, administration, consultants, and encouraging consolidations are the best targets to find savings."

Consolidations don't come quickly, if they ever occur at all. The salary cap promises to do more to raise consciousness and set examples of reduced expenditures than it does to spare big bucks.

Realistically, any elected executive in need of immediate major savings finds little choice but to reach for bigger expenditure pots: overall workforce size, across-the-board benefits and collective health-care costs.

Taken in isolation, the proposed cap would make barely a dent in government spending. While state leaders look to close a $9 billion-plus deficit, Cuomo, in proposing this new pay limit, estimates $15 million in savings statewide.

The legislation - imposing a cap between $125,000 and $175,000 based on a school district's size - promises no instant impact.

But this latest Cuomo proposal also serves another symbolic role at a moment when events in Wisconsin raise national questions about the very future of civil service.

As he snips executive-chamber expenses, Cuomo looks to reinforce the message that management, like labor, must take trims. And the 107 or more Long Island superintendents who stand to be affected clearly qualify as management.

Strategic balance is a tactical theme in this administration. Accordingly, there's some practically based wiggle room in the proposal: The salary cap would apply only to superintendents' future contracts. And communities could vote to override it in an individual work contract.

Last month, as he presented a budget with a $1.5-billion school-aid cut, Cuomo cited (without names) the eye-popping $386,868 salary of Syosset schools Superintendent Carole Hankin - tops in the state.

"I applied for that job," he joked, noting that the governor is paid $179,000.

Legislative leaders have yet to fully react. Aside from other states with such caps, such as New Jersey, there is precedent in New York, which already has a $155,572-per-year salary cap for superintendents in BOCES districts.

No crowds are expected to take to the byways of Suffolk and Nassau in solidarity with top-paid school administrators. Politically for Cuomo, this measure is as logical as any he has yet put forward.