Are Erie County’s elected leaders getting paid enough? That question will once again come before the Citizen’s Salary Review Commission that will meet on Friday in what will be a monthslong process.
The reconvening of this special committee is noteworthy because when the commission last came together in 2018, it put forth recommendations that resulted in substantive pay raises for the county executive, comptroller, sheriff and county clerk. Aside from recommending one-time pay hikes, which took effect on a staggered schedule based upon elections, the commission also tied all future annual raises to the Consumer Price Index.
The new pay structure, if adopted, would include automatic annual raises tied to the consumer price
Prior to that recommendation being adopted by the County Legislature in 2019, elected officials had gone without raises for 23 years. The decision to tie future pay increases to the consumer index was meant to bypass the type of political controversy that led to prior salary review recommendations winding up in the trash.Â
But with inflation and the Consumer Price Index growing sharply in recent years, those same elected leaders are now seeing bigger percentage pay hikes than the vast majority of employees who work for them.
County…
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