Since they will affect the lives of millions of New Yorkers, all public policy issues under consideration in Albany deserve some debate.

The state constitution requires a three-day waiting period from the time a piece of legislation is introduced until it may be subject to a vote.

This allows legislators at least a brief amount of time to discuss the merits of a bill.

It also permits members of the public to let their elected representatives know what they think about the measure.

The constitution, however, permits the governor to waive the mandated waiting period if he or she believes a bill must be acted upon immediately; this is done through a “message of necessity.”

This is not an unreasonable provision.

Emergencies may require the quick passage of a bill to address an urgent matter.

But as with any law, the language contained in the constitution is subject to interpretation.

And when political opportunities present themselves, our current governor has been known to invoke the message of necessity for a variety of items — whether or not the average person would declare them urgent matters.

One of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s latest uses of the message of necessity was to toss a proposed five-year contract with members of the Civil Service Employees Association on the desks of state lawmakers just prior to them adjourning the recent legislative session.

A news release issued June 20 by the governor’s office provides no details of what’s in the contract; it merely includes quotes from Mr. Cuomo and CSEA President Danny Donohue on what a terrific job they believe everyone did on reaching the agreement.

Of course, with no public debate, members of the state Legislature passed the measure June 21 after Mr. Cuomo invoked the message of necessity.

It sailed through the Assembly by a vote of 138-1 and cruised through the Senate by a vote of 62-0.

An entry posted June 21 on the blog NYTorch titled “Cuomo’s cloaked CSEA deal” by E.J. McMahon, founder and research director of the Empire Center for Public Policy in Albany, offers a true public service on this legislation.

The article uses what information is available on the CSEA contract to analyze how much New York taxpayers will be forking over for this deal.

“Base salaries for the 60,000 CSEA-represented state employees will grow by Cuomo’s favorite all-purpose multiplier. His three-year deal last fall with the second-largest state government union, the PEF, featured annual base pay increases of 2 percent a year, which is also the maximum level of allowable growth in local property tax levies (outside New York City) under his 2012 tax cap,” Mr. McMahon wrote. “Two percent is also the level at which he has pledged to ‘cap’ state spending (aided by accounting and timing gimmicks). So the salary hikes in the CSEA contract, at least, were easy enough to guess at. Sure enough, CSEA members also will get raises of 2 percent a year — but over five years instead of PEF’s three, which compounds to 10.4 percent by fiscal 2021.

“In considering the impact of base pay hikes, for starters, it’s important to keep in mind that CSEA members under current law also are entitled to receive up to seven automatic annual ‘step’ increases as they move from the ‘hiring rate’ to the ‘job rate’ in each pay grade, plus annual ‘longevity’ payments once they have worked continuously for five and ten years, respectively. Annual increases in base pay raise the number in each of the 200 steps on the 25-grade CSEA pay schedule. On base pay alone, without even considering steps, CSEA members come out ahead of inflation in the first year of the pact, when the Budget Division says the consumer price index was up 1.6 percent. Going forward, however, 2 percent is below the general consensus,” he continued. “DOB forecasts CPI growth of 2.2 percent in fiscal 2018, while the Congressional Budget Office is projecting an annual CPI increase averaging just below 2.4 percent in calendar years 2018 through 2021. That would translate into a compound cost-of-living increase of about 11.7 percent from fiscal 2016 through the end of the contract period, not counting annual step raises. So the CSEA’s base pay increase alone would appear to be about a point and a half below projected inflation — creating a risk for the union that inflation will be higher, and a risk for the state that inflation will be lower. … The legislation submitted by the governor also stipulates that the CSEA base pay hike will be augmented in the final two fiscal years of the contract, effective April 1, 2019, by significant increases in existing longevity payments and by a new, added longevity bonus for employees who have served continuously for at least 15 years at the job rate atop their pay grade.”

The timeline for negotiating this contract should have taken into consideration the need for public debate before the end of the legislative session.

But why bore constituents with details of a plan that will chew up their hard-earned money?

Mr. Cuomo has once again distorted the spirit of the message of necessity provision by applying it to items he wants passed behind closed doors.

And state legislators have once again complied with his wishes.

This abuse of executive authority perverts our practice of democracy and needs to stop now.

© 2017 Watertown Daily Times