EDITORIAL: Schmitt can't duck blowback on big raise

Wasn't Peter Schmitt invited to the tea party?

As the Republicans make their triumphal return to lead the Nassau County Legislature, Presiding Officer Schmitt thinks he "deserves" a 47 percent salary hike. Schmitt either doesn't understand the populist uprising that's under way or he's just too arrogant to care.

Not only is Schmitt wrong, he's devious. The county charter requires an intervening election before a legislator's salary can be increased. Any vote this year to raise the base pay, currently set at $39,500 for the part-time job, wouldn't go into effect until 2012. Democrats considered a salary raise several times when they were in power but never called a vote on it, for fear of voter wrath. Tired of waiting for his payday, Schmitt wasted no time increasing the leadership stipend, which fattened his annual income from $67,500 to $99,500.

New GOP County Executive Edward Mangano has offered tepid, indirect criticism of the raise but agreed to the Democrats' request that the county attorney review its legality.

The resolution for the pay raise was time-stamped in the clerk's office at 9:45 a.m. and voted on by 10:30 a.m. There was no public notice. Schmitt clearly didn't want to hear what the people might say. Now he and the 10 other Republican legislators who blindly followed their leader may not have a choice.

Three months after the GOP took back control of the county on a campaign of fiscal conservatism, local Tea Party leaders just got served a delicious trifle on a silver platter. hN