9/29/07 - County must hike pay of election commissioners

(As published by Cortland Standard, Corey Preston reporting)

The county will have to pay both of its election commissioners $29,967 for this year, a Supreme Court judge ruled this week.

The salary is $3,600 more than the Legislature intended to pay the commissioners through the
passage of a recent local law.

Supreme Court Judge Kevin Dowd ruled the county did not have the right, by passing a law last December, to set both commissioners’ salaries at $26,384, as doing so would reduce Republican Commissioner Bob Howe’s salary in the middle of his two year term.

Dowd ruled that, for 2007, the county must pay Howe’s 2006 salary of $29,967, which had been based on his 10-year longevity in the position.

Because of a state law that the commissioners’ salaries be equal, the county must also raise Democratic Commissioner Bill Wood’s 2007 salary — in 2006 Wood was paid $25,616 because it was his first term in the position — to match Howe’s, Dowd said in the ruling.

The local law removed the election commissioners from the county’s management compensation plan, which raises county employees’ pay based on longevity.

That law, which set both commissioners’ salaries at $26,384, was passed in response to a complaint from Howe and Wood that their uneven salaries, due to the longevity pay, did not comply with state law.

The day after the Legislature passed the law however, Howe and Wood sued the county, claiming that Howe’s salary could not be reduced mid-term, and that Wood should be paid retroactively to match Howe’s salary for 2006.

Dowd’s ruling does not state that the county owes Wood retroactive pay for 2006, but focuses on 2007, after the commissioners’ were removed from the management compensation plan.

By that same logic, Dowd’s ruling also does not address whether paying the commissioners for longevity, with an equal base salary for both positions, was legal, instead focusing on the decision to remove the commissioners from the management compensation plan and, subsequently, reduce Howe’s salary.

Howe, who took the lead on pushing the county to even the commissioners’ salary, said this morning that he felt Dowd’s ruling “vindicated” his original intent to even the commissioners’ salaries.

“In following election law, I thought I was correct in asking that both commissioners be paid the same,” Howe said. “I know there were people who asked ‘why is he doing this,’ but I did it because it’s the law and I was willing to take consequences, good, bad or indifferent.”

Attorney Greg Gates, who represented the county in the case, said that he felt Dowd’s decision upheld the county’s intent in passing the local law.

“When the Legislature acted in 2006 to take them out of the plan, that was entirely proper,” Gates said.

Gates said that the county had conceded that it shouldn’t have decreased Howe’s salary mid-term, and that any decision on the commissioners’ salaries beyond 2007 would fall to the Legislature.