Good reasons for panel to deny Albany pay hikes

The state pay raise committee that was created both in secretive haste should just go home. Unless state legislative leaders promise ethics reforms, this process is not a pay hike, it’s a heist.

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and soon-to-be Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins won’t publicly commit to strict limits on outside income for legislators, and unless they do so, the commission should refuse to act. At least Heastie will testify Friday in New York City. Stewart-Cousins thinks she can hide until she takes the gavel.

The members of the committee — NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, CUNY board chairman Bill Thompson and SUNY board chairman Carl McCall — generally agree that legislators deserve their first raise in 20 years. They’re not wrong.

But an increase in the $79,500 base pay, which reaches an average of $92,000 with stipends, is wrong if it doesn’t reduce the temptation of influence peddling in scandal -wracked Albany. Bans or limits on outside income are in place for the New York City Council and Congress.

Two years ago, when Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo first set up such a compensation committee, a Quinnipiac University poll showed 56 percent of New Yorkers favored a raise for Albany lawmakers and only 36 percent opposed it — as long as there were limits and other reforms. The public opposed a raise on its own by 70 percent to 24 percent.

The current pay committee must act by Dec. 10. Any raise they named would take effect for 2019, unless lawmakers vote it down. They won’t. So the first thing Democrats will have done when they take sole control of state government is stuff their pockets with taxpayer dollars.

The committee’s reputations are built on integrity and accountability. Why risk them? No reforms, no pay raise. — The editorial board