Phil Reisman: Politics of seeking a raise

Ask yourself: Did you get a raise this year? Better yet, did you even have the guts to ask for one?

It might interest you to know, if you didn't already, that as of this writing New York's state lawmakers are negotiating for their first pay increase in 15 years.

Fifteen years is a long time. But considering how many politicians in the state capital might be under investigation and how many in recent memory have been indicted, convicted and sentenced for stealing, this might seem like an awfully unpropitious time to ask taxpayers for a reward.

The 150 Assembly members and 63 senators make $79,500 a year. But they technically work a part-time legislative gig and are allowed to have "real" jobs — such as outside "consulting" for companies that may or may not do business with the state. Yes, the quotation marks are meant to be sarcastic. Recall that Nick Spano in the days when he was riding high as a state senator from Yonkers collected $480,000 in consulting fees from an insurance company that received a handsome state contract.

There are ways around that $79,500 base salary, as the Empire Center think tank recently noted. Most legislators receive stipends of various sorts that substantially increase their pay.

The think tank reported that five out of six senators received $90,000 or more in 2013, including David Carlucci, D-New City ($92,000); George Latimer, D-Rye ($90,500); Andrea Stewart-Cousins, D-Yonkers ($114,000); and Greg Ball, R-Patterson ($92,000). I'll have more to say about the amazing Ball later.

In the Assembly, more than two-thirds got a stipend and half made more than $90,000 in 2013. Of the local delegation, three relatively new members received only the minimum $79,500 pay: Steve Otis, D-Rye; David Buchwald, D-White Plains; and Shelly Mayer, D-Yonkers.

It's unclear what a pay raise would look like. One figure circulating the Albany hog trough is $112,500, which is the salary paid to New York City Council members. A fair number of state legislators already make at least that much.

As far as taxpayers are concerned, there probably is never a good time to discuss giving politicians a raise. But this particular discussion comes amid damning revelations in The New York Times, which reported Monday how the Moreland Commission was striking a nerve in its investigation of state corruption when Gov. Andrew Cuomo abruptly shut the panel down in March. The commission's unfinished work, the Times said, "centered largely on how politicians were taking advantage of gaps in the law, and exploiting weaknesses in the enforcement, to raise money for campaigns as well as enrich themselves personally."

One of the most glaring weaknesses is the "LLC Loophole," which lets corporations skirt the $5,000 donation, the maximum allowed in an election cycle, by funneling 12 times that amount through limited-liability companies. In the eyes of the law, LLCs are considered to be individuals, proving once again that Mitt Romney was right. Corporations are people.

This method of fundraising helped Cuomo raise $47 million in the last gubernatorial election — and it's precisely the type of loophole the Moreland Commission wanted to close.

Now back to Senator Ball. According to the Times, the Moreland panel was zeroing in on legislators who have demonstrated a habit of tapping their campaign accounts for personal use. Ball's campaign managed to spend money in 17 states, the Times said.

When he was in the Assembly in 2010, he paid a $700 hotel bill in Cancun and withdrew $500 from an ATM. He went to Acapulco, too.

Campaign funds were used to pay a $4,000 bar and restaurant bill in Austin, Texas. He also bought a Brooks Brothers suit for $160.

Once, he tapped campaign money to pay entry fees for Tough Mudder, an extreme obstacle course.

Bits and pieces of this have been reported elsewhere before, but the Times went into greater detail. Through his lawyer, Ball contended that some of the spending was for legitimate campaign purposes and that he also was owed money by his campaign. Using the funds to buy personal stuff was his way of retiring the debt.

That may be so. But it's interesting that Ball, who seemed to really love the attention of being a politician, decided not to run for re-election this year. (He said it was time to return to the private sector.) And it's even more interesting that for a guy with a knee-jerk propensity to tell his antagonists to go kiss his butt, this time he had his lawyer do the talking for him.

Tough mudder, indeed.