Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Public authorities dishing out ridiculous salaries

From the Daily News:

It's nice work if you can get it.

Nearly 5,500 employees spanning more than three dozen state public authorities raked in six-figure salaries last year, the Daily News has learned.

That amounts to 6% of the 90,237 state authority employees on the payroll, according to a recent review by the Authorities Budget Office.

Overall, the budget office found that the average total compensation package for a state authority worker is $70,600.

Long considered a "shadow government," public authorities serve as patronage mills that operate in secret and ring up hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, critics charge.

Former Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, who pushed for the creation of a body to oversee public authorities, said the new numbers shed light on the previously "secretive, Soviet-style bureaucracies."

"To finally have a light on the salary practices will require people to justify salaries which strike the average citizens as strange - and unusually high," Brodsky said.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority topped the charts by employing the most staffers pulling in six figures.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes. But MTA at least serves a useful function and is pretty open with their outreach and public reporting.

The real bastard is EDC - aloof, unaccountable, inept and uses our electeds to serve the needs of developers.

The public's wishes, as the public itself, are invisible in the process.

Cav said...

And the Triboro Bridge and Tunnel Authority was only supposd to be temporary until the bonds were paid back. Something seems to have gone amiss.

Anonymous said...

And the Triboro Bridge and Tunnel Authority was only supposd to be temporary until the bonds were paid back. Something seems to have gone amiss.

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The changes were enacted by Albany.

Cav said...

"The changes were enacted by Albany"

Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. That was meant as a joke.

Anonymous said...

There is no doubt that shadow government is the worst kind that serve us (not) in NYS. These bodies are semi-autonomous NYS agencies that are run like fiefs and serve at the behest of the Governor. The salaries are high, the individuals who run them are political friends of the Governor whom are in office as a reward. Many of these agencies are ineptly run and weild great power and could great harm to citizens as their sphere of influence to cause pain is widely employed. The MTA is the biggie agency in NYC region and all others are spread across the NYS.