All Vote More Pay, Only Leffler Says Nay

When the New York City Council voted itself a 28 percent pay raise on Wednesday, 11 of Queens’ 14 representatives supported the item. The $19,500 raise, as recommended by an independent government advisory commission, met with lopsided support from the council City-wide.It passed on a vote of 38-5.
The only Queens Council member to oppose the pay hike was Councilman Sheldon Leffler (D). All are ineligible for re-election due to term limits,
One issue that has come under scrutiny regarding the raise is whether a City Council seat is a full or part-time position.
Technically, it isn’t. There are no legal restrictions keeping officials from holding private careers or generating outside income. For example, Councilmen Morton Povman (D) and Sheldon Leffler, the sole Queens dissenter, are both lawyers. Councilman Thomas White (D), Jr. is a business executive.
Neither Morton nor White were present for the vote.
According to many members a City Council position is an attention-consuming, full-time affair. John Sabini (D), Walter McCaffrey (D), Al Stabile (R) and Karen Koslowitz (D) all said they usually work at least 60 hours a week.
"I have grandchildren who I don’t get to spend as much time with as I’d like because I work all the time, even a lot of weekends," Koslowitz said. "And when you work at a regular full-time job you get extended vacations. We don’t."
White’s chief-of-staff said the councilman’s weekly schedule requirement "depend largely on Council activities, weekend meetings, and committee and subcommittee meetings." Council members said their variable schedules disrupt pursuit of private careers, a fact that changed the position of Councilman John Sabini on the issue. He voted against the last recommended raise, citing its "effective date" among his concerns.
The raise is retroactive to July 1.
"This time those concerns were outweighed by my feeling that financial incentive is important to attracting quality people to council," Sabini said.
Leffler finds flaws in Sabini’s argument, especially the retroactive date.
"City residents will see no benefit from the raise," Leffler said. "They are only paying more for the same elected officials."
As the dissenting voice in the Queens delegation Leffler called the raise a "windfall", with no provisions to tie it to performance in the near future. There are no benchmarks or conditional provisions attached to the pay hike.
Councilman McCaffrey disagrees, saying he and his colleagues, by the nature and responsibilities of their jobs, have earned the large raise. "I think we are now receiving a salary more reflective of our roles in the City government," McCaffrey said. "If we held comparable positions in a private company like General Motors we would earn even more."
At the most fundamental level, Leffler said he feels the pay raise is a betrayal of the public interest.
"This raise is not what the public wants, what the public feels we deserve," Leffler said. "It would be one thing if we [Council members] were running a private business, had a good year and decided to reward themselves with a raise. But as elected officials we are in the business of protecting the public trust and we haven’t."