Manager Raises, At Last

With Albany's approval of a city sales-tax hike finally assured, Mayor Bloomberg July 10 belatedly, and deservedly, signed off on two four-percent raises for city managers.

Mayoral Press Secretary Stu Loeser made it sound in a press release as if a thunderbolt from the heavens brought Hizzoner to the realization that the lack of raises for the 6,700 managerial employees for more than two years had put many of them in a position where their pay had fallen behind that of more than a few of those they supervise.

The truth is, Mr. Bloomberg had reason to be aware of that problem long before this—the case has been argued by the Managerial Employees Association, an advocacy group, for some time now.

Some of the more-extreme examples could be found in the Police Department, where a Deputy Chief—who is represented by a union—was making nearly $15,000 more than a non-union Assistant Chief, and $10,000 above what Bureau Chiefs were earning. In the Fire Department, 20 percent of staff chief positions were vacant in large part because unionized employees in a lower rank shunned a promotion that would have meant a pay cut of $9,000.

Notwithstanding the city's all-too-real fiscal problems, the managerial freeze amounted to bad management. Until now, Mr. Bloomberg had been aware of the need to adequately compensate those on his management team, who even with the pay boosts may wind up making less than subordinates who can boost their earnings with overtime work.

One reason Mayors sometimes are slow to boost managers' salaries—besides the fact that they have the discretion to take their time—is that such increases are often viewed as low-hanging fruit for editorial writers. In this instance, the dailies have generally refrained from bashing the hikes, but the void has been filled by City Comptroller Bill Thompson.

He called it "disgraceful" and "offensive" and a sign that Mr. Bloomberg was "out of touch."

On the contrary, the Mayor was addressing a pressing problem, and Mr. Thompson has raised a phony issue. That was disappointing, particularly because his comments came just a couple of days after his mayoral campaign got a significant boost with the endorsement of the Working Families Party, which should have made the Comptroller lessdesperate for cheap publicity.

There's no question that it's tempting to argue that those whose compensation is near or above $200,000, as is the case for most Commissioners and Deputy Mayors, should bite the bullet while the city is enduring tough fiscal times. But those people hardly make up the bulk of the managerial cadre— most of those affected are earning closer to $60,000, which is hardly a munificent salary given their responsibilities and the cost of living here.

That reality, coupled with the leapfrogging by some subordinates of managers at the upper levels of agencies, made a compelling case for granting the raises once the city was assured of the additional tax revenue to pay for it.