Just in case you missed this in yesterdays news.I called my State Senator and told him he wasnt worth $15,000 per year.So all you government loving slugs read and head.

Are state legislators ready to give themselves a raise?


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Postelection special session could have more than one purpose

By TOM PRECIOUS
News Albany Bureau
11/23/2006

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Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, D-Buffalo: "I don't think it is as much of a priority for some of the upstate members as it is for downstate."

ALBANY - State legislators return to the Capitol just one more time this year in a special session to grapple over how to keep certain sex offenders confined after their prison term ends.
And the legislators also may take up the question of increasing the number of charter schools in the state.

But what do some lawmakers really want?

A pay raise for themselves.

For the advocates - a quiet bunch given the political consequences of a self-imposed salary increase - the time is at hand. By law, legislators can't vote themselves a pay raise and have it take effect in their current term.

That means for a pay raise to take effect Jan. 1 - when a new term of the Legislature begins - a vote needs to take place by Dec. 31.

Gov. George E. Pataki is set to call the Legislature back to Albany next month to address last week's Court of Appeals decision striking down his method of keeping the most serious sex offenders confined in mental health facilities upon their release from prison.

Although the special session would be legally restricted to the one issue, once the Legislature returns to town, anything can happen with the simple gaveling out of one session and then gaveling back into a new session.

For months, the speculation has been rampant that this would be the year for a legislative pay raise. The last one was given in 1998.

Enter Malcolm A. Smith. The new minority leader of the State Senate, Smith last week called for a pay raise. State lawmakers deserve it, the Queens Democrat said.

His reasons included a recent vote by the New York City Council raising their pay from $90,000 to $112,500 - $33,000 above the base pay for state lawmakers.

"I support a pay raise," Smith told reporters.

Until that point, legislators have publicly brushed aside thoughts of a pay raise. Both Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver say there have been no pay raise discussions. Each of the 212 members in the Legislature starts with a base pay of $79,500 a year. To that are added lu-lus, or stipends, for those serving as committee chairmen and in leadership posts. In the cases of Bruno and Silver, that means an additional $41,500 a year.

The chief push for a pay hike is coming from within the Assembly, notably from New York City area Democrats who say their cost of living is far higher than in other sections of the state.

"Legislators on this end of the world are dying. Legislators on your end of the world are living very well," Assemblyman Gary Pretlow, a Westchester County Democrat, said of lawmakers from Western New York.

He said the average home price in his county is now $700,000.

"I can't afford to rent a garage down here," said Pretlow, whose base pay is supplemented by a $12,000 stipend for a committee post job.

To state lawmakers like Pretlow, the timing of the raise for New York City Council members stings.

"They do nothing," he said of the city lawmakers. "They name streets."

Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, D-Buffalo, sought to quickly dispel any notion that he favors a pay raise for himself. But he said he understands concerns by downstate lawmakers who have higher living costs.

"I am sympathetic to a state legislator who lives in Manhattan and has to make ends meet on that salary compared to someone like myself who lives in a region with a much different cost of living," said Hoyt, who gets a $12,500 lu-lu for a committee post he holds. State lawmakers don't deserve a raise, said E.J. McMahon, director of the Empire Center for New York State Policy, a conservative think tank.

He argues they work in a highly inefficient Legislature, where the chief business of lawmaking each year really doesn't get started until the final few weeks of session. While many lawmakers talk of long hours of work back home in their districts, he says the two days a week they average in Albany for six months a year is wasted time for most lawmakers outside the leadership structure.

"They do not run nearly as well as Congress runs, which is really saying something," McMahon said.

While upstate lawmakers would not mind getting a salary hike, the issue is breaking across geographic lines.

"I don't think it is as much of a priority for some of the upstate members as it is for downstate," Hoyt said.

New York lawmakers are paid the third highest salary, behind $110,880 for California legislators and $79,680 in Michigan, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

In this much-touted era of reform in Albany, there will be no hearings or public debate if a pay increase does come during the next month.

But one thing will enter the equation if a pay raise does come onto the table in Albany: horse trading.

Under one scenario, Pataki, a lame duck governor, gives lawmakers a salary increase in return for something he wants to highlight as he leaves office.

If so, toughening confinement rules for sex offenders and increasing the number of charter schools would certainly fit that trade bait possibility.

"I want the charter school cap raised as much as anyone, but in the long run, it would be better if they weren't rewarded for bad behavior and had to be bribed again," McMahon said.

Will the pay hike happen?

"The governor's focus is on winning passage of civil confinement legislation," David Catalfamo, a Pataki spokesman, said of the governor's push on a sex offender bill. "A pay raise is not part of that discussion."

In Albany-speak, that means a pay raise is not being ruled out.

"I find it difficult to believe they won't try something," McMahon said.