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from the The Journal News.
Salaries soar for
By
Liz Anderson The Journal News (Original
Publication:
|
What they earn |
It's been a good year for staff at the Westchester County Board of Legislators,
with many employees receiving raises of 5 percent or more.
One saw her salary jump a whopping 36 percent, according to
figures obtained by The Journal News in response to a request filed under the
state Freedom of Information Law.
The filing, which requested details of all salary changes and
board hires, covered the time period November 2005 to early October of this
year.
Most county civil service employees got average raises of 3.1
percent from 2002 to 2005, the last year of their most recent contracts; this
year's pay scales are the subject of ongoing negotiations.
Any raises are officially given out by Board Chairman William
Ryan, D-White Plains, in consultation with the board's rules committee - which
is made up of Ryan; Minority Leader George Oros, R-Cortlandt; Vice Chairwoman Andrea Stewart-Cousins,
D-Yonkers; and Majority Leader Martin Rogowsky, D-Harrison.
Ryan said the raises were based on merit, with staff who performed satisfactory work generally earning a boost of
3 percent to 5 percent. He said the employees are first reviewed by their
immediate supervisor or supervisors, then the committee will "discuss
whether or not a pay increment is warranted and if it is, we discuss what that
should be."
Oros
explained it differently.
"You have to understand how this works," Oros said. "The chairman comes in and says this is
what he'd like to do, we all make our comments, and he does what he wants to
do."
The biggest pay boost, by far, was that handed the board's
communications specialist, Betsy DeSoye. The former
lawyer was receiving a salary of $68,885 as the board's "communications
officer" at the start of 2005 when she got a raise that boosted her pay to
$70,265. Then, in March of this year, she was promoted to communications director;
because that job does not exist in the pay scale she is being paid, for now, as
a "director of program development."
The promotion came with a pay boost to $94,000 a year, retroactive
to December 2005 - a 36 percent pay jump in just under a year.
Ryan said DeSoye's promotion was a
"fair upgrade" that reflected a shift from a position in which she
was reporting to others to one with more responsibilities and duties. People
doing equivalent jobs in other parts of government are being paid six figures, he
said. Ryan said he expects to eventually pay DeSoye
at that level.
"There's no reason someone should be paid less than a fair
market rate for their work," he said.
In addition to issuing press releases and developing the board's
message, DeSoye oversees the board's Web site,
assists with speechwriting and helps draft submissions to other publications,
Ryan said.
Lawyer Michael Amodio, a part-time aide
who reports directly to Ryan, is scheduled to work 17.5 hours a week and gets
full county benefits; his pay was bumped in May to $40,000 from $35,000, a
nearly 14.3 percent increase.
"The percentage is meaningless in that case," Ryan said.
"He got a raise commensurate with the work product; the work he's doing
for us here. "Hey listen, if we
have an account that has 37 dollars in it and we take it up to 74, what does
that mean?" he added. "You have to look at more of the story."
Annette "Sally" Schecter, a
member of the top of three tiers of "legislative aides," is one of
the more publicly visible members of the staff, checking in speakers at public
hearings and sitting with the board clerk near the speaker's podium during
meetings. Schecter saw her salary raised in two
steps, to $80,000 this year from $74,920 in mid-2005, a jump of nearly 6.8
percent overall.
Board fiscal analyst Raymond Indelicato
got a similar increase, awarded in December 2005 but retroactive to the
previous July, that raised his salary 6.7 percent, to $75,000 from $70,265.
Ryan said Indelicato had taken on the increased
responsibility of analyzing all the items Ryan must vote on as one of three
members the
Two other top staff members got 5 percent raises in 2006, each
retroactive to the start of the year. Bob Boland, the board's director of
fiscal affairs, is now paid $135,855; Gary Kriss,
chief adviser to Ryan, is paid $146,454. Ryan's personal secretary, Anna Coiordano, and Susan Mauro, who works for Republican
legislators, also were bumped 5 percent, to $53,349.
Jumping from the second to third tiers in the legislative aide
ranks brought 15.5 percent pay increases, retroactive to July 2005, to the
paychecks of Steve Bass, Tara Bernard and Susan Kirkpatrick. Formerly being
paid $58,865; all three now receive $68,000.
Aides Brian Bochow and Emilia Vita went from the first to second tier. The move
took Bochow's pay to $48,000 from $43,000, an
increase of 11.6 percent; Vita was already being paid $53,405, so her raise, to
$55,000 annually, only amounted to 2.9 percent. Lynda Greene was moved from "senior
office assistant" to an entry-level legislative aide position in December
2005; her salary was raised 5 percent, to $46,447 from $44,210.
Smaller raises, in the 3 percent range, went to acting board clerk
Tina Seckerson and legislative aides Barbara Dodds and Malika
"Sunday" Vanderberg. Seckerson
now is paid $95,000 annually; Dodds $60,630 and Vanderberg $61,844.
The board filled a series of vacancies, hiring Melanie Montalto, a former Department of Social Services
eligibility examiner as a full-time legislative aide at a salary of $50,000.
Christina Giliberti, a former board intern, joined
the staff in June as a senior office assistant at a salary of $36,000.
Three other employees only work part time and get a pro-rated
portion of their salaries, Ryan said. Yolanda Robinson, a former program
administrator at the Department of Senior Services, transferred to the Board of
Legislators in April as a top-ranking legislative aide with a listed salary of
$71,670.
Traci Alexander was hired in October as midranking
aide at a salary of $58,865. And Andrea Ettere, who
left the board about two years ago to work for former Assemblyman Lou Mosiello, was rehired in September as a midranking
aide at a salary of $58,865.
Oros said
he only favored large pay increases if someone's job scope increased or they
were promoted to a new position. He argues it is faulty to compare any pay
level to what someone could get in the private sector, because government
workers get "a much better pension system, much more job security, a heck
of a lot more days off and a good health benefit."
County legislators also got a raise this year, after voting in
December 2005 to raise their own pay starting in 2006 by 14.3 percent, to
$49,200 annually from $43,060; many also get bonuses for leadership roles. Ryan
earns the most, at $89,200.