CARMEL – The chairman of the Putnam Legislature, Dan Birmingham of Southeast, has called on his colleagues to approve a local law limiting salary increases for the nine-member governing body, in addition to the county executive, to once every four years, with hikes no greater than the annual consumer price index for the previous four years.
Legislators currently earn $48,000 a year for the part-time position, while the chairperson is eligible for an additional $12,000 stipend that Birmingham and several predecessors declined to accept.
Birmingham has also proposed eliminating a county requirement that the county executive be the highest paid salaried county employee with the exception of those who must be duly licensed to practice medicine in New York State, the district attorney, or any other employees whose salary is fully or partially set by state law.
Birmingham said such an “artificial ceiling, that no county employee can make more than the county executive, allows the county to run into retention issues with some of our longest serving employees.”
Former chair Legislator Amy Sayegh of Mahopac called the proposal a great idea, noting that a “few years ago the legislature voted itself a 14 percent raise after more than 10 years went by without any increase, and it became a political football.”
District Attorney Robert Tendy said competitive pay is essential to attract and retain qualified assistant district attorneys.
He said the current law requiring that the county executive receive the highest salary is arbitrary.
“Somebody could run for county executive and be 35 years old and immediately be the highest paid person in the county, when somebody could have been here 37 years,” he said.
Tendy added that the county’s salary cap was a “retention issue. If I lose one of my more experienced ADAs, I will not be able to replace them.”
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