A. Thompson and Stachowski’s leaders handed out pay hikes while Albany dithered Even as they were locked in a month-long stalemate and facing warnings of gaping new holes in the bloated state budget they approved, A. Thompson Bill Stachowski’s do-nothing Senate Democrat Leaders handed out whopping pay raises to their staff last month.
The pay raises of as much as 51 percent went to top aides to Sens. Malcolm Smith and John Sampson, the two Democrats who led the stalemate.
The raises cost taxpayers over $200,000, and included a hike for a top staffer who is eying a run for a vacant NYC State Assembly seat.

Are we getting pissed off yet? I am getting very tired of their constant stream of lies and abuses.

Do-nothing State Senators doled out fat raises to top staffers even as they were locked in a month-long power struggle that paralyzed Albany.

Records released by state Controller Thomas DiNapoli show that 11 top staffers have gotten pay hikes of as much as 51% since the June 8 Republican-led coup.

The salary boosts were quietly granted even as DiNapoli and Gov. Paterson studied ways to legally dock the pay of the bickering senators.

The total cost to taxpayers, who already are appalled that the bipartisan fight took precedence over lawmaking, runs nearly $200,000 a year.

The bulk of the pay raises went to top aides of Senate President Malcolm Smith (D-Queens) and Senate Democratic Conference Leader John Sampson (D-Brooklyn). The bonanza even padded the annual salary of Mortimer Lawrence, special counsel to the Senate majority leader and the highest-paid Senate staffer.

Lawrence’s pay was upped by 16% to $177,231.

Lawrence’s windfall was peanuts compared with the 30.6% raises that went to Senate Majority Deputy Secretaries Meredith Henderson and Patricia Rubens.

Henderson and Rubens each saw their annual pay skyrocket nearly $33,000, to $140,382.

Legislative Analyst Despina Moraitou’s salary climbed 51.1% to $75,787 – a $25,651 bump.

Senate Democrats claimed the pay hikes were granted before the coup and had nothing to do with the fear they could lose control of the Senate – and its purse strings – to the Republicans.

Smith’s spokesman Austin Shafran said the salary increases were staggered because of the state’s budget woes. He also said the pay hikes were delayed because Democratic leaders kept on more than 300 key Republican staffers through April 1 to ease the shift in power that occurred in January.

“When the Democrats came into the majority in January, a number of high-level essential staffers were given raises commensurate with their duties now in the majority,” Shafran said.

“The raises had been scheduled for a while. The decision was not made after June 8, after the leadership dispute. One thing had nothing to do with the other,” Shafran added.

Others staffers getting raises include:

# Curtis Taylor, special adviser to the majority leader, whose pay went up 11.1% to $134,695.

# Loudes Ventura, counsel for Latino and immigrant affairs, who saw her pay bounce 10% to $131,150.

# Indira Noel, director of intergovernmental relations, who had her annual pay jacked to $118,153, an increase of 10%.

# Senior policy adviser Christopher Labarge, who received a 13.3% raise to $85,232.

# Celeste Knight, special assistant to Sampson, who had her salary go up 46.7% to $70,191.

# Shirley Piper, administrative assistant to Sampson, who saw her pay jump 28.5% to $45,122.

# Senior Analyst Vincent Thomas, whose pay went up 22.5% to $65,177.

News of the pay raises comes after Mayor Bloomberg decided Friday to hand out $69 million in raises over two years to 6,692 of his managers and nonunion employees.

Money for nothing? State Senators doled out fat raises to staffers while Albany paralyzed