In 2011, Suffolk County passed a local law (Article I, Section 77-4) barring county elected officials from collecting two public-sector salaries. Now, however, County Executive Steve Bellone wants to change the law to make an exception for Monica Martinez, a newly elected county legislator who also is an assistant principal at the Brentwood School District’s East Middle School.
Ms. Martinez is the sister of the Babylon deputy town supervisor, who is close to Bellone, and she won a primary challenge against another Democrat who was not a loyal soldier. Local political considerations aside, the situation raises interesting questions about the nature of public employment and elective office.
Members of the Suffolk County Legislature earn $98,260 a year — nearly $20,000 more than the $79,500 base salary of state lawmakers. Among local legislative bodies in the Empire State, only New York City Council members are paid more. Ms. Martinez’s salary at Brentwood this year is reported at $117,000, so the allowance would boost her combined pay to over $215,000.
Just a year ago, Ms. Martinez was paid $111,013, according to the SeeThroughNY database, which is derived from school district reports to the New York State Teachers’ Retirement System. Back in 2008, she was paid just $79,237. It seems likely that she was still a teacher at the beginning of the period; in any event, a nearly 50 percent pay gain in six years isn’t bad.
One aspect of this situation not highlighted in the Newsday story is Ms. Martinez’ pension status. NYSTRS records indicate an original hire date of September 1, 2000, which would suggest she’s got 13 years of credit. That’s more than enough to be vested, but as any public employee could tell you, the magic number is 20 years, at which the pension multiplier becomes 2 percent; i.e., 2 percent of final average salary for each year worked between 20 and 30 years. So Ms. Martinez has an added incentive to want to stay in NYSTRS. Assuming she never previously worked in state or local government, she’s starting in the county as a Tier 6 employee, meaning she’d need 10 years to vest in the New York State and Local Retirement System.
Who knows–maybe a few decades from now, we’ll be reading about Ms. Martinez and her two public pensions.
About the Author
You may also like
Counties’ Medicaid role dwindles
New enrollment numbers from the state-run health insurance exchange confirm a trend relevant to budget talks in Albany: The role of local governments in signing people up for Medicaid is smaller than ever. Read More
A lesson on apprenticeships
The raw politics behind giveaways to building trade unions were on display last week in Troy, a city outside Albany. Read More
Cuomo extends costly arbitration law
Three years ago, Governor Andrew Cuomo blew a rare opportunity to fundamentally reform one of the most costly provisions of the New York State law regulating public-sector collective bargaining.
Now he's about to blow it again. Read More
Local govs score with better websites
In 2014, the Empire Center created guidelines for what information local governments and school districts should make available on their websites—and found that most of the state's 500 largest municipalities and districts were not meeting that standard. Read More
“Warning”: taxes might not rise
Don't look now, but given current inflation trends, next year's school property tax cap may be ... zero!
That's the message of a statement released last week by the Educational Conference Board (ECB), a coalition of groups representing public school administrators, school boards and—last but hardly least—the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) labor union.
The ECB's "warning" was meant as an inside-the-Albany-bubble scare tactic, but for most New Yorkers, it's good news: further confirmation that the tax cap is working exactly as intended. Read More
Local websites improve bit by byte
Good news to cap off Sunshine Week: at least some local government and school officials are working to make their websites more useful and informative. Read More
Local tax cap may dip in ’15
The property tax cap for New York counties, towns and villages with fiscal years starting January 1, 2015 will start at 1.56 percent, slightly lower than last year's starting rate of 1.66 percent. The cap in each locality will vary based on the amount of applicable allowable exclusions for growth in local property values. Localities also will be able to exclude the amount by which the change in pension contributions exceeds two percentage points Read More
Bill repeals local control of cop discipline
A bill rushed to passage by both houses of the Legislature last week would gut local control of police discipline by deeming it a subject of collective bargaining throughout the state.
The bill can be seen as a fresh test of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's commitment to "transform" a state dominated by public employee unions. Read More