Cuomo warns state workers
by Martha Foley on November 23rd, 2010
WWNY-TV reports Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo toured Sunmount Center in a surprise visit to Tupper Lake yesterday. He also toured an empty but still-staffed detention center in Fulton County.
He had words of warning for state workers at both places.
During his campaign, the Democrat promised to cut waste, and consolidate public services – even if it means cutting jobs.
According to WWNY, Cuomo said layoffs aren’t just about numbers, they’re about families, but also said, “If I was a state worker and just a resident of the state, I would be afraid of what is coming ahead.”
According to the AP this morning, at the Tryon detention center, he put it this way: the next fiscal year will be “very, very difficult.”
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If I were Cuomo, I would do a Regan and fire all state workers, bust the unions, and rehire at lower wages.
One start would be second attempt at encouraging older state employees to retire. In other words a second incentive package. After all it’s these older workers who typically cost taxpayers the most. Perhaps an incentive for 50 year old and up employees regardless of their years of service.
And we need to consolidate departments or eliminate them entirely. For instance do we really need State troopers with an annual starting salary of $80,000 plus benefits per year patrolling the thruway and having seat belt “inspections” during holiday weekends? Can’t these functions be done more cheaply by having lower paid thruway personnel patrol the thruway and have county law enforcement (much less lower paid) do the seat belt, registration, DWI checks? If the State Troopers are the “elite” of state law enforcement, why aren’t they solving real crime or utilized more efficiently? It seems extremely wasteful to me to have 3-4 troopers with a combined salary of nearly half a million dollars checking seat belts on a highway.
Same thing with education, cut the absurd overkill and waste at state ed. and consolidate the administrative duties of school districts, or entire districts themselves. The same goes for the various levels of gov’t. Towns and villages throughout the state need to be consolidated. The list goes on and on…….Sure it will be painful, but we have no choice.
Don’t whine, liberals. Those of you who supported NY Post-endorsed Cuomo over progressive Green Howie Hawkins are getting what you voted for.
I voted for Howie Hawkins as well, Brian. Hopefully residents of our state and country will realize we need alternatives to the long established Dems and Repubs and do what is needed to get the Green party, or some other alternative on ballots around the country. I’m delighted that the Green party in New York earned the required minimum and will be on the ballot henceforth.
Clap- the Troops on the T-way are paid by the T-way IIRC. And not all County agencies are paid more that the SP, which is why the SP wages took a boost during binding arbitration talks a few years back. Turns out Troopers in the LI/NYC were actually eligible for food stamps! As for “why aren’t they solving real crime or utilized more efficiently?” talk to your politicians. They’re the ones making the decisions to get Federal funding that require certain road checks, etc. I can say with some certainty that most of the guys would much rather be working on burglaries, rapes, drugs, assaults and the like rather than rushing through a background check for a Governors Applicant, posting summer camps, writing seat belt tickets, canvassing the neighborhood for needy kids for the SPSP summer program, carrying “vital” court paperwork from one end of the North Country to the other because some ADA someplace forgot to do his housekeeping.
You want to cut the SP? Start in Albany above the rank of Lt. or Capt. That’ll be far more effective in cost cutting.
Something that jumped out at me in The Young Princes statement, ““If I was a state worker and just a resident of the state…” Just a resident of the state? What’s that mean? If you aren’t “somebody” in the Democrat machine you’re toast? Interesting.
Good for Cuomo. State government is too wasteful, big, and inefficient.
Bret,
I know several state troopers personally as well as two BCI investigators and they make far more in salary and benefits than any county law enforcement official except perhaps a fairly long serving sheriff or a county DA. And that’s in a troopers first year of employment. And one of these acquaintances occasionally patrols the thruway and is certainly paid the salary of a trooper. Now perhaps there’s some process for reimbursement from the Thruway Authority to the State police budget, but his actual salary does not change. Or so he tells me. And the troopers who’ll be all over the North Country this next week doing “seat belt checks” certainly are paid from that same State police budget.
And I’m not saying that perhaps given their qualifications, training, etc. they shouldn’t be paid accordingly. But again, do we need these highly trained and compensated personnel manning roadblocks checking seat belts, registrations, etc? And of course it’s not their preference to be doing this type of work and it is indeed the leadership that needs to change this. That’s where the reform I’m suggesting needs to begin. On that I agree entirely….
I think that all law enforcement agencies should stop doing roadblocks. A waste of money and time, and an inconvenience to drivers. Time to put an end to this foolishness
Ask your pals if they make more than the Suffolk and Nassau Co Sheriffs. And you’d better check further south again because a first year Trooper doesn’t make more than a County Sheriff in many areas. Your friend shouldn’t “occasionally” be patrolling the T-way since that area is a separate Troop. What he’s doing there unless assigned is between him and his boss. The T-way Troopers are “owned” by the T-way, trust me. But what do I know, I only spent 23 years working there.
I’d personally have no issue with the Troops going back to something like the old manning status. But, the State took funding after 9/11 to establish a lot of positions. My last position was Federally funded (CVEU), so are/were many others. Like any State agency once a line number is established it’s as close to a permanent thing as can be. You want to cut the numbers that’s fine. Thing is, what you might like to see and what I might like to see ( more Investigators at the station level that actually work on CRIME, more emphasis on crime fighting than tickets) isn’t what the brass and politicians will want. They’ll want revenue and job security. Just like DEC, it’ll be the field workers that get canned first when it should be the brass that’s been there 35 years getting put out to pasture.
I have no problem with troopers making a good salary because it is a potentially hazardous job. Even a “routine” seat belt check could turn in to a bad situation.
I do agree that it seems they could spend time doing more real crime fighting rather than handing out seat belt and other trafic tickets though.
The sad thing is that there is such a disparity between the state troopers and county/local law enforcement pay. Their jobs are also potentially hazardous and equally as important.
This really is an example of the problem of the disproportionately high salaries of state workers as a group compared to equvalent non-state jobs. The other problem is the overloaded top-heavy state burocracy.
It is not right that the taxayers of the state, many who are struggling to survive and are being laid off as businesses leave the state due to high taxes, should be paying for the bloated state government. It is also not right that the state employees unions refuse to cooperate in an effort to get the budget under control. To be sure, there is a lot of room for cuts at the top, but if the union refuses to accept elimination or postponement of pay increases, then they layoffs are the other option.
Maybe early retirement for highly-paid workers within a couple of years of normal retirement age is OK, but I don’t think any large-scale early retirement for workers “over 50” is acceptable either. Even if there is a short-term benefit, in the long term, it will only mean that the state (i.e .we the people) will be paying benefits to non-productive individuals for an extra 10 or 20 years.
Hey, I’m over 50. Nobody is offering me early retirement, and in most cases companies who can’t afford to keep workers are not offering them early retirement either. They are just laid off, or the entire factory or office is closed, etc. State workers should not be getting extra benefits that the average public taxpayer is not getting.
Basic public safety would be some of the last things we would cut.
I mean we have guys from the DOH in Albany out inspecting barber shops. The office of Mental Health, Department of Health and Office of Children and Family Services would be where to start and you could start right in Albany in those giant towers.
I agree with Bret the cuts should be in administration first and the field as a last resort.
But anyway the real costs of the NYS budget reside in our massive medicaid bill. They are going to have to strip that down, many other states do not pay for nearly as many things as NYS allows, that would have to be a start.
How do you convince the “brass” in any State agency that the cuts need to made among “the brass”? It never happens. Maybe an outside agency should do the audits?
Bret,
Regardless of who “owns” these troopers, they’re still being paid a very large salary to provide road patrol, even if it’s less than a regular trooper. But perhaps I’m wrong on this. Since you were part of this dept., and I assume would know the pay scale, what is it?
And of course a first year trooper’s salary isn’t higher than a salary of a Sheriff on Long Island. I’m referring to the sheriff salaries here in the North Country. Check the salaries of the St. Lawrence, Jefferson or Lewis county Sheriff, they certainly didn’t start at $80,000 per year. In fact, those beginning salaries are lower, despite being an elected position that’s responsible for entire county depts. Again, I’m not disputing that they shouldn’t earn a good salary given the nature of the job, its qualifications, etc. but more how they’re utilized.
It seems from reading the posts in this thread that there’s agreement that we need reform at the highest levels of gov’t and in the area of how the state utilizes all of its resources. As you indicated, we certainly can’t rely on the “brass” to cut the “brass.” Perhaps your idea has merit. An outside agency tasked with and given the power to make the cuts necessary and revise the way troopers, in this example at least, are assigned duties. The same process could apply to gov’t consolidation at the local level, and at State Ed., and with school districts, and with the various Authority’s now in existence in the state, and with Corrections, Mental Health, etc…..
Cutting jobs is the only way to significantly reduce costs in a service organization. It’s a hard thing sitting across the table from a man or woman who supports a family and telling them not to pack their lunch for monday. Our leaders don’t have the courage to do it. The private sector must in order to survive.
A way to subtanatially increase revenues is to tax ALL pensions like the IRS does. NYS retirees collecting substantial pensions and social security pay zero taxes on those incomes, regardless of amount and then can exempt $7,500 in interest income from their $350,000 CD earning 2%. Private sector retirees exempt up to $20,000 regardless of the amount of other income.
Of course I wouldn’t run for office touting the taxation of pensions so it will never happen. In order to tax state pensioners the NYS constitution needs to be changed. That will never happen.
Good luck Gov. Cuomo
There isn’t any new Trooper making $80K!!! They start, last I knew, in the mid $50’s. Do I think that’s high? Yup. But, the justification was that the State was having a very tough time finding qualified applicants with the college and clean background in the numbers they needed for the $17K I started at. You’d have to take that up with the State. And the T-Way troops make the same scale, the funding comes from the T-way tolls. So in one sense I suppose you could look at it as a savings. Are they overpaid? Probably 80% of the time, yeah. It’s that other 20% when you’re wrestling with some moron that’s trying to kill you or driving 125mph down a dark road to respond top a domestic or standing on a road block while some guy who’s already killed a couple people and shot a few more is in the nearby woods with a rifle that the rest of the pay comes into play. In the North Country a Trooper used to a good paying job, now it’s a great paying job. Get into the Albany/Rochester/Buffalo/ NYC area and it’s lower to mid level middle class.
My idea of how they should be utilized probably lines right up with yours, in fact I’d bet I’m not making any friends among the Troops with my comments thus far. Tough. Things used to be different and I lived through it. In fact, the last time we had a crisis, under Papa Cuomo, the Troops were stuck at $24,308.00 for many years. I know because I had to listen to the bellyaching! In those days we couldn’t get tires, uniforms, fuel was even tight. We we’re told it was either accept that contract or they’d lay guys off. They’ll do the same thing again. They’ll threaten layoffs, negotiate a different contract and then ask for more tickets, more road checks, more revenue. It always works that way.
IMO there’s no reason, for example, the DEC Police, Park Police and Forest Rangers couldn’t all be under the SP. Consolidate the buildings, services, supplies. I can assure you that the DEC brass would fight that tooth and nail though. But it makes sense. It’s be a savings. There are other areas where that could be done too, I’m sure.
You can see what any government employee makes at this site:
http://seethroughny.net/Payrolls/EmployeeSearch/tabid/69/Default.aspx
State Police are under the executive branch. You then have to select “New York State Police” under the “Sub agency/ Employer” drop down. Did a sort on the “Rate” lowest to highest and the first person listed as “Trooper-State Police” has a salary of $51,885 which I would presume is the starting salary. Problem is there are only 24 names listed so this in fact may only be the pay rate for new troopers during their evaluation period. Have to get over 60 thousand a year before finding anyone else listed as “Trooper-State Police”. If you so desired you could reconcile the listed names with when they graduated from the New York State Police Academy website. My guess is that total compensation after one year of service will be in excess of 60k.
Which still isn’t the $80K mentioned. I have my Social Security report in hand and I was on 15 years before I broke $80K and you can thank 9/11 and the unlimited OT for that.
As one of the last troopers hired, I made $58k in my first year on the job. To someone up north where the cost of living is quite low this may seem like a lot of money. But try living in NYC with 2 kids and a wife and you start to see that this is not a high salary. It will take me a few years of risking my life before I am making a consistent 80k a yr. And believe me in my short time on the job I dont just write tickets. I’ve been to multiple violent domestics and alost hit by a car several times. We are severly understaffed as a department and haven’t had a class hired in 2 years, with no class coming in any time soon. The deputies that work by me make a comparable salary, and some of the local pd’s in the more expensive area’s exceed our salary by quite a bit. So to compare the salaries of North country and insinuate that “all State Troopers are overpaid” is obsurd. The high disparityor pay between that of local police and the State Police only takes place where the cost of living is a lot lower. So whether it’s the State Police doing a road check, or the Sheriff’s office or a Town/ Village/ or City Cop, the disparity of pay is going to depend on where in the State this takes place. Just for arguments sake, the average home value in lewis county is well under $150k and thats highballing it. The average home value in Westchester, which 45 min north of NYC, is over $500k, and thats lowballing it. Go a little North into Dutchess county and you average $300k. Is a State Trooper Still overpaid?
Sounds like alot of trouble could be avoided if the state would simply offer a fair salary to Troopers and add a substantial downstate differential to make up for the disparity in living costs downstate vs. upstate.