Mikey Gets One Thing Right
Okay, I've spent enough time bashing Mikey on this blog, and undoubtedly will return to bashing him in due course. However, I must give credit where it is due. There is one thing Mikey has done that I approve of - Pressured the City Council to trim its budget. In a time when 2,000 municipal workers were just laid off, there is just no good reason for the following.
Nearly three dozen staff members earn more than elected council members' base annual salary of $90,000. Four aides to Miller each earn $160,000, including the legislative counsel, land use division chief, general counsel and chief of staff.There are also three $140,000 deputy chiefs of staff, a $120,000 senior adviser to Miller and a district-based Miller aide who gets $99,000 a year. Twenty-three central staffers are assigned to Miller alone.
Three attorneys were hired as consultants even though the council has at least 26 attorneys on its legal staff. CUNY professor John Mollenkopf got a $50,000 contract for redistricting assistance. In another consulting deal, Eric Lane, a Hofstra University law professor and an expert on the City Charter, was hired for $80,000 for one year as "special counsel to the speaker."
Council members get $240,000 each for staff and rent and are allowed to set staff salaries themselves. Some have hired their own press secretaries despite a 12-person council public affairs office in City Hall. Its director, Policano, earns $140,000.
If we are closing firehouses and reducing garbage pickups in Queens to once a week, I think City Council staffers need to make some sacrifices too.