Politics on the Hudson

   Senators left town last week without coming to an agreement on whether the New York City mayor should continue to have control over schools, but today they announced an agreement. The Senate is expecting to vote on the legislation before schools open this fall and add a chapter amendment designed to boost parental input, improve arts education, hold public meetings on school safety, and increase community superintendents’ oversight.

   The Assembly already passed the bill, but members won’t have to revote on the legislation with the chapter amendment. Legislation allowing mayoral control expired June 30 and has to be renewed. New York City has 1.1 million students.

   “Establishing greater avenues for parental input in our schools will better prepare students to contribute as our next generation of thinkers, workers and leaders,” Senate President Pro Tempore Malcolm Smith, D-Queens, said in a statement. “The more engaged parents are, the better an education our children receive. We now have a system designed to serve their needs and provide the education our children deserve.”

   Gov. David Paterson said he was glad the Senate and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg forged an agreement that “will continue the progress of the past several years while addressing the concerns of New York City’s parents.”

   Gov. David Paterson appointed Valerie Grey today as director of state operations, effective Monday. Grey has been first deputy secretary to the governor since April, working with Lawrence Schwartz, secretary to the governor, on policy and operational initiatives, including the creation of the Office of Taxpayer Accountability.

   Grey, who will earn $176,000, will continue to oversee the Office of Taxpayer Accountability and coordinate with state officials and agency experts to eliminate waste and provide relief to taxpayers. She will replace Dennis Whalen, who recently announced he is resigning as of Sept. 8.

   “Valerie is an invaluable member of my administration and I am pleased to have her counsel as we work to improve our local economies, bring reform to state government and ease the burden on New York’s taxpayers,” the governor said in a statement.

   Before April, Grey was assistant deputy secretary for health and human services. Before that, she was assistant commissioner of government and external affairs for the state Health Department. She has also worked for the state comptroller and held jobs outside state government. She has a bachelor’s and a master’s in economics from the State University of New York.

   Gov. David Paterson, who hasn’t left the state since the Senate leadership coup began June 8, headed to Washington today after attending a ground-breaking for a semiconductor wafer fabrication facility in Saratoga County this morning. 

   The governor said in court papers this week that he was unable to leave the state during the month-long leadership standoff because of the the uncertainty over which party was in control of the house. If there is no lieutenant governor, the Senate president would take over as governor in an emergency or if the governor left the state. Even though senators resolved their differences July 9, the governor said he was concerned the current leadership is fragile, and he didn’t want to leave the state.

   The governor appointed Richard Ravitch as lieutenant governor July 8, prompting a lawsuit questioning the constitutionality of doing so from Senate GOP leader Dean Skelos, R-Nassau County, and Sen. Pedro Espada, D-Bronx. Espada had been allied with Republicans for a month but flipped back to the Democratic conference July 9 and ensured they would be in control of the chamber again.

   Earlier this week, a state Supreme Court judge had placed a temporary injunction against Ravitch, preventing him from performing his official duties. The next day, however, an appeals court suspended the injunction.

   “There’s a dispute in the courts right now, but there is no dispute today,” Paterson said at the ground-breaking. “Richard Ravitch is the lieutenant governor today and that will give me time to get to Washington and get back. There’s no proceeding until Monday.”

   Paterson had meetings scheduled this afternoon with U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel of New York and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. He plans to attend an event on the Americans with Disabilities Act at the White House, he said. (more…)

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo yesterday expanded his investigation into scrupulous debt collection agencies that he claims extorted victims of thousands of dollars by denying them their day in court.

Cuomo claims roughly 100,000 New Yorkers, including about 9,580 in the Westchester County area, were victims of widespread fraud within the debt collection industry and in the New York court system.

Read more here and here.

   The non-partisan Fiscal Policy Institute released a study today that said the increase in the federal minimum wage tomorrow—from $6.55 an hour to $7.25 an hour—will affect an estimated 123,000 New York workers. This is the last of three hikes approved by Congress in 2007. 

   Workers in New York, however, will see a smaller increase because the minimum wage has been $7.15 an hour since January 2007. Thirteen states and the District of Columbia have minimum wages above $7.25 and will not be affected.

   Earning $7.25 an hour, a full-time worker will gross $15,080 a year, less than 83 percent of the $18,310 poverty line for a family of three, the institute said.

   Minimum wage used to go a lot further than it does now, according to the institute. At $7.25 an hour, the state’s minimum wage will be 21 percent below its peak value in 1970—$9.23 in today’s dollars. The inflation rate in New York has been 4 percent since January 2007, the group said.

   “Research has shown that workers benefitting from minimum wage increases in New York are disproportionately women, and minimum wage earners on average contribute most of their family’s earnings,” Michele Mattingly, a research associate with the institute, said in a statement.

   James Parrott, deputy director of the institute, said the state should increase the minimum wage so workers today are on par with workers in 1970 and are above the poverty line. Ten states index their minimum-wage rates to cost-of-living increases, something New York should do, he said.

   This is the history of New York’s minimum wage per hour: (more…)

The state Division of Budget released a copy of the memo sent to agencies today about the voluntary severance program. Gov. David Paterson announced June 5 that he had reached an agreement with the Civil Service Employees Association and the Public Employees Federation.

The agreement calls for offering a one-time $20,000 incentive payment to about 4,500 employees. They can only be given to individuals in positions that will be permanently aboilished, and the Budget Division has to approve them. Agencies have to submit plans to the budget office by Aug. 21, and the state will approve them no later than Aug. 28. Employees have to resign and be off the state payroll by Nov. 11. The net savings over two years is projected at $260 million.

CSEA and PEF agreed to work with their members on a voluntary reduction in work schedules, which will save an estimated $156 million over two years.

The unions agreed to setting up a new tier of the state pension in which new public employees will accept less generous benefits than current employees. That is expected to save $30 billion over 30 years for the state and municipalities outside New York City.

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Here’s a copy of today’s court order suspending the temporary restraining order on Richard Ravitch, Gov. David Paterson’s lieutenant governor. L. Priscilla Hall, associate justice of the Appellate Division, 2nd Department in Brooklyn, ordered that the parties appear in court Monday.

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   A state appeals court has suspended a temporary injunction that was put in place Tuesday to prevent Richard Ravitch from performing the official duties of lieutenant governor, according to Gov. David Paterson’s office.

   Paterson and Ravitch, whom the governor appointed July 8, appealed the injunction today and are seeking an expedited appeal process in the case, which is expected to go to the state’s highest court.

   “An injunction that directly interferes with the lieutenant governor’s performance of the public’s business should not be imposed lightly, let alone one that directly interfers with the governor’s own performance of the public’s business,” the appeal said.  

   A state Supreme Court judge in Nassau County who ordered the injunction set the next court date Aug. 25.

   The plaintiffs in the case—Senate Republicans and Sen. Pedro Espada, D-Bronx—want to prevent the governor from appointing Ravitch or anyone else as lieutenant governor. Ravitch, 76, is a former chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

   The position of lieutenant governor has been vacant since now-former Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned in March 2008 and Paterson, who had been lieutenant governor, succeeded him.

A deputy commissioner and clerical worker were fired from the Westchester County Board of Elections yesterday as part of a retooling of the GOP there, The Journal News has learned.

Steven Levy, Republican deputy commissioner, and Rosemarie Spano-Gannon, a clerical worker and sister of longtime state Sen. Nick Spano, were told late Monday they were out at the elections board.

The firings came a day after the county’s Conservative Party for the second time in two months endorsed several Democrats — notably County Executive Andrew Spano and District Attorney Janet DiFiore — and weeks after Doug Colety, chairman of the Westchester Republican Party was hired by the board of elections as a $64,425 a year voting machine technician.

Levy, 37, said he was “pretty shocked” when he was nixed by the commissioner at 4:50 p.m. and told he had until the end of the day to leave a post he’s held since 2007. (He also held that position from 2000-2003).

“I was completely caught off guard,” he said, adding that he wasn’t given an explanation. “We had a great working relationship.”

Levy earned $103,460 a year, and Spano-Gannon was paid  $55,965 a year.

The move is all part of a restructuring of the office, said Republican Commissioner Carolee C. Sunderland.

As all positions at the board of elections are appointed and political, it’s the commissioner’s prerogative to make changes, she said. She said the dismissals had nothing to do with any other party.

“It is not uncommon to let people go or to change people’s positions,” Sunderland said. “I have been thinking about this for a number of months.”

Sunderland has not named a new deputy but is considering several people with extensive political experience. “That person is not going to be a political novice,” she said.

Prior to working as deputy commissioner, Levy served as Nick Spano’s chief of staff in the state Senate. He also serves as executive director of the Yonkers Republican Party.

Spano-Gannon, 47,  is married to Chris Gannon, a member of the Westchester County Conservative Party’s credential committee that was involved with that party’s endorsements. She could not be reached for comment.

Deveraux Cannick, chairman of the Mount Vernon Democratic City Committee, issued this statement last night about the county Board of Elections ruling that knocked the committee’s four city council candidates off the ballot. Here it is:

Mount Vernon, NY — Unfortunately the Westchester County Board of Elections determined that our candidates should not be on the ballot based on a technicality regarding which candidates should be running for the unexpired term for the city council seat that was vacated by councilwoman Loretta Hottinger even though councilwoman Eileen Justino is the candidate on the Democratic Party petition to replace her.

The Mount Vernon Democratic Party has been and will continue to be the champions for democracy. We believe that the almost three thousand registered democratic Mount Vernon residents that signed our petitions to get these candidates on the ballot as well as the more that one hundred unpaid volunteers who tirelessly worked on behalf of the Democratic candidates have a constitutional right to vote for these candidates.

There are four seats up for the city council and the democratic voters have signed petitions for these four candidates and we will not allow Mount Vernon residents to be denied their voting rights on a technicality.  We will use all the resources of the Mount Vernon Democratic Party to make sure that our voters are not disenfranchised. We are confident that justice will prevail; our candidates will be restored to the ballot and that Mount Vernon voters will have the opportunity to vote for the candidates of their choice.

All voters of Mount Vernon, Westchester and indeed New York should be appalled that a technicality would attempt to be used to deny voters the candidates of their choice. Last year these same unpaid volunteers worked tirelessly to bring out over 23,000 votes in the national election for Obama, whom we know would not agree with depriving people the right to vote for the candidates of their choice.