legislators deserve a pay cut
The super-secret pay hike for state legislators must be a negative number. nassau otb employees want the same raise. we have fewer indictments.
Friday, November 30, 2018
Claude Solnik
Long Island Business News
2150 Smithtown Ave.
Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348
Home > LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays
Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
Shhh. The state Legislature would really prefer that no one say anything about, or even notice, the quiet drive to hike its members’ pay until it’s a done deal.
The commission that will pull the trigger on the salary increase held one “public” meeting Tuesday . . . at 11 a.m. in Albany. The next one is in Manhattan — Friday at noon at the SUNY Global Center, 116 East 55th St. Is that convenient for you?
Created this year by one of those “three men in a room” deals, the New York State Compensation Committee will announce its pay-hike recommendation early next month — and it’ll become law unless the Legislature rushes back to Albany for a special session to vote it down. (Pigs will fly first.)
The roundabout secrecy is meant to keep all fingerprints off the move, because pay hikes for lawmakers poll really badly.
That’s why the “three men” put the decision in the hands of the state and city comptrollers, Tom DiNapoli and Scott Stringer, plus two ex-comptrollers, Carl McCall and Bill Thompson — who now head the SUNY and CUNY boards. That is, four politicians who’d prefer to keep the Legislature’s goodwill. Expect a generous pay hike.
To be fair, lawmakers’ pay has been flat since a 1998 increase; it hasn’t even had a cost-of-living adjustment. Meanwhile, ethics reforms have cut down their ability to earn outside income — even perfectly ethical ones.
On the other hand, base pay starts at $79,500, which is still more than your average New Yorker makes. And legislators get a few perks, too — including per diem expenses covered whenever they’re in session.
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