Curran's budget hides actual pay of some elected officials (Updated)

                                                                         

                                          Nassau County Executive Laura Curran's 2020 Pay 

From Newsday

Whatever happened to the old-time  citizens budget review committee, comprised of interested residents who used to examine Nassau's published spending plans for accuracy?

Maybe it was thought to be no longer needed with the advent of the Nassau Interim Finance Authority, a state monitoring board that was supposed to keep the county's numbers honest.

But real numbers are hard to find in Nassau County Executive Laura Curran's budgets.

Not just projected deficits and surpluses that never match reality.

But in elected officials' salaries as well.

Let's for example, look at Curran's published salary.

According to her 2021 NIFA-approved budget, Curran's salary is listed as $196,374 for 2019, the same again for 2020 and also the same for this year.

                                                                             

From adopted Nassau 2021 budget

But Newsday reports that Curran got paid $202,394.19 last year, according to payroll data received from the county.

The $6,109 in additional pay is a three percent increase, suggesting that Curran last year accepted an automatic pay increase based on the area's cost of living -- though that is not reflected in this year's budget.

The county legislature approved automatic cost-of-living adjustments for countywide elected officials during the administration of former Democratic County Executive Thomas Suozzi along with big one-time pay increases.

But shouldn't the published budget show those adjustments, somewhere?

If Newsday's numbers are accurate, that means that Curran, a Democrat running for re-election this year,  has received a total $10,773 increase in annual pay since she took office in 2018, starting at a salary of  $191,621 in 2018.

She got a 2.48 percent adjustment in 2019  and then her pay increased 3 percent more in 2020.

If she gets another 2 percent adjustment this year, she will be paid $206,441.

Again, this is all legal. It just should be published for the public to see.

UPDATE: Some county officials say that Curran was paid for as many as eight extra working days in 2020, and did not accept the automatic increase. Eight extra days would add about $6,000 to Curran's pay. But that's not reflected in the budget,  nor explained how or why the average 262 working days a year in 2020 became 270 in Nassau County.

Apparently, while some people in the private sector lost work days because of the pandemic, Curran added them.

Curran's budget also does not show salary increases since 2019 for the county comptroller and county clerk, though Newsday reports their pay also increased last year by about 3 percent, to just under $200,000 a year. (They too must have been credited with extra working days).

The county legislature in 2015 approved a  pay hike for legislators, from $39,500 a year to $75,000, effective Jan. 2018. The legislature also approved annual adjustments for lawmakers based on the cost of living.

Legislative budgets since then reflect the adjustments. They were paid $80,137 in 2020, according to Newsday's Nassau payroll data. The budget says their overall pay should go up by two percent this year. It is difficult to tell for certain what their base salaries will be because they are lumped into the same budget line as the majority and minority leaders, who all receive an additional stipends.

Former County Executive Ed Mangano, who took office in 2010, did not accept the automatic increases  until 2017 when he took the adjustments in a lump sum of  $17,000.