In Saugerties, first-term Supervisor Kelly Myers came up with an inventive idea for a pay raise from her demonstrably inadequate $35,000 a year. Since she has health coverage from her husband’s employer, converting her $15,000-a-year health plan into cash was one possibility. The board wasn’t buying it.
In Highland, new supervisor Paul Hansut, having lost a bid to make the supervisor’s term four years, actually gave back $5,000 in salary to help balance the town budget. His current salary is just below $30,000.
Then there’s the state legislature, bereft of a pay raise since 1999. The wheels have been in motion for awhile to trade a legislative pay raise — probably to something like $95,500 for political purposes — for a hike in the $7.25 minimum wage to probably $7.99 an hour.
Here’s a thought: Pay legislators the new minimum wage.
As a final thought, nobody should be asking for a raise after only one year on the job.
Recount continues
It may take awhile, and maybe some judicial intervention, before we seat a new state senator in the new Kingston-Montgomery state senate district.
Word out of heavily Republican Greene County last week was that a recanvass had reversed Democrat Cecilia Tkaczyk’s unofficial margin of 139 votes on election night to a 54-vote edge by Republican George Amedore.
This brought joy if not hope to the Amedore campaign, which a month ago thought it was looking at a 5,000-vote victory. A recanvass, which reviews machine results, is a different animal from an absentee count, however. There are maybe 8,500 absentee votes in play, likely almost equally divided between the major parties. And those votes won’t be officially counted until perhaps early December. After that, the courts could get involved, further delaying matters.
Put it this way, the close, contested election two year ago between the late Tom Kirwan and Frank Skartados in the Orange-Ulster Assembly district, wasn’t finalized until early February.
Meanwhile the majority in the Senate hangs in the balance as a delegation of Democratic dissidents attempt to cut a deal with Republicans to keep the GOP in power. It appears that the voters narrowly opted for a Democratic state Senate. To have that result reversed by conniving politicians — with or without the active involvement of the governor — would make a mockery out of the last election.
Golden Hill moment
The chair of the Golden Hill Local Development Corporation, charged with selling the Ulster County infirmary in Kingston, isn’t making predictions as to when the process will be completed. “At every meeting we hope this will be the end, and then there’s some wrinkle,” GHLDC chair Dare Thompson said after the board’s three-hour executive session last week.
The board has been reviewing proposals from six bidders since last summer. Each bidder has committed to a minimum purchase price of at least $10.5 million, secured by a good-faith deposit of $150,000.
The Hein administration convinced the legislature to approve creation of the LDC last December. They hope to complete the sale by the end of next year. Proceeds will be returned to the county to cover what Hein estimated would be an $8 million budget gap in the 2012 budget.
The 280-bed Golden Hill nursing home, built in two stages during the mid-1970s, employs about 300 county workers.
The development corporation, which has been meeting on at least a monthly basis, was scheduled to meet again this week.
