Law: No budget, no paychecks. Progress may be made this week.
New York State Legislator Al Stirpe, D-North Syracuse, hikes with his daughter, Alex, 14, and their dog Riley at Green Lakes State Park on Saturday. Syracuse, NY - New York state legislators have reported to work for almost four months without pay.
It’s a punishment lawmakers brought on themselves. They wrote it into the law the last time they gave themselves a raise, in 1998.
If legislators have not passed a state budget by April 1, they will not receive their paychecks until they get a state spending plan together.
It’s not working.
State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli has withheld $5.6 million in salaries.
The state budget is 117 days late.
The two men who control the pace of budget negotiations have other sources of income to pay their bills. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Sen. John Sampson, Senate
majority leader, are lawyers in private practices.
Not far down the legislative food chain, however, are lawmakers who have no other jobs and little control over budget negotiations happening behind closed doors.
Sen. David Valesky, D-Oneida, is knocking on wood that his Malibu Maxx with 157,000 miles keeps rolling. The car has “3” on the license plate to mark his leadership rank, as vice president pro tempore of the Senate. He has no other job, and his wife, a teacher, also does not receive a paycheck in summer. The Valeskys are running through their savings as the comptroller holds onto one-quarter of his $113,500 annual salary.
“We’re making the best of it, just like many families in dealing with the economic crisis of this recession,” Valesky said.
Even with the No. 3 job in the Senate, Valesky’s role in budget talks is similar to other legislators, who are voicing their opinions to the leaders.
Assemblyman Jose Rivera, D-Bronx, best demonstrated the frustration July 1 when he started throwing food during a speech in the Assembly and asked if the Senate went home early because they were sick and tired of eating cheese and crackers or maybe they needed a change of underwear.
“I want to go home,” Rivera shouted to applause from his colleagues. “I want to get paid!”
The Assembly passed the last budget bill that day in early July, but the Senate adjourned without voting before the July 4 weekend. That means no one in either house gets paid.
Gov. David Paterson has ordered the Legislature to return to Albany Wednesday.
State legislators earn a base pay of $79,500. They also earn stipends, called “lulus,” for leadership jobs on committees.
Legislators are not making a salary, but they are also not forced to brown bag their lunches. The state has continued to pay legislators for food and lodging when they are in Albany — a per diem allowance that has cost the state $1.6 million since April. Legislative travel has also cost taxpayers about $500,000 since April.
Legislators can be paid up to $171 per day for food and lodging. That includes up to $110 a day for lodging and $61 for food ($12 for breakfast and $49 for dinner.) Legislators do not have to submit receipts to show how much they actually spent on food and lodging.
The Senate has spent 46 days and the Assembly has spent 47 days in session since April 1. Legislators also work in their district offices.
Sen. John DeFrancisco, R-Syracuse, said he can live without his paycheck. He is a lawyer with a private practice in Syracuse. He makes an annual salary of $100,000 from the Senate.
“I know it’s a lot greater hardship for a lot of other people,” he said. “What’s really, to me, the worst part of it is that the people that are really suffering are the ones that really have no control over when this budget gets done because of the leadership from New York City that simply just go forward and do what they want to do and don’t do what they don’t want to do and that’s what’s happening right now. I think it’s unfair for those who have nothing to do with the current fiasco in Albany.”
Assemblyman Brian Kolb said he had to borrow money to pay his mortgage and other bills. The state has not paid one-quarter of his salary, which is $114,000 with lulus.
“I’m not independently wealthy. This is my only job,” said Kolb, R-Canandaigua, the Assembly minority leader.
Some legislators are reluctant to talk about not getting paid because they don’t want to sound like whiners and they know they are not seen as sympathetic characters in the drama playing out in Albany.
“They all think you’re a bunch of whatevers,” said Assemblyman Al Stirpe, D-North Syracuse. “I don’t mind talking about it. I think people should understand what it means and what we really have to go through in order to hold these lofty positions.”
Stirpe also relies on his Assembly job as his sole income. He makes the base salary of $79,500 with no lulus.
He has said he has to borrow money, use credit cards and skip vacations.
“There are a lot of things you give up,” he said.
As a farmer, Sen. Darrel Aubertine, D-Cape Vincent, is used to long stretches without pay.
In addition to his $92,000-a-year Senate job, Aubertine grows hay and raises beef cattle in Jefferson County. He said he has tapped into his savings and taken out loans to make up for lost Assembly pay in the same way he has had to go to the bank in down times on his farm.
“In the meantime, interest in savings you lose, and interest on notes you have to pay,” he said. “You’re not going to be compensated for that.”
The law about withholding pay was in place for three years when Aubertine was first elected to the Assembly, in 2002. But he was not aware of it until 2004, when the budget debate lasted until August. He had to borrow money that year, too.
Aubertine said the Legislature could have passed a budget much earlier, but it would have meant accepting Gov. Paterson’s proposals to close prisons, historic sites, state parks and other job-cutting, tax-increasing measures.
“We could have had a budget April 1 no problem and nobody would have missed any paychecks except those people that lost their jobs,” Aubertine said.
In interviews for this story, legislators were quick to spin their answers into themes that sounded like campaign rhetoric. The entire Legislature is up for re-election in November.
Republicans slammed Democrats for stalling on the budget and said the bigger travesty is that constituent groups and contractors are not being paid. DeFrancisco called the Senate leadership incompetent. Kolb, who does not have an opponent this year, said he hopes voters notice in November that Democrats in the governor’s mansion and both houses have been lousy leaders.
Legislators also used the opportunity to say why they continue to do this work.
It’s not about the pay, they said.
“It’s not the right business if you don’t get the right satisfaction about being able to help people occasionally,” Stirpe said.
Contact Michelle Breidenbach at mbreidenbach@syracuse.com or (315) 470-3186.