Andrew Cuomo Made $225,000 and Is Top-Paid Governor Ever By Adam Andrzejewski
With a $225,000 salary, New York’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo is the country’s highest paid governor.
That’s as he collects $4 million for writing a book during the Covid-19 pandemic about his graceful leadership during the pandemic — allegedly with the help of his staff, possibly violating labor laws against using public resources for personal gain.
And it’s as he is fighting sexual harassment allegations and scandal from misleading the public about how many people died from Covid in nursing homes.
But the $225,000 is not even his top pay.
In 2018, The New York State Commission on Legislative, Judicial, & Executive Compensation gave the legislature and the governor pay raises.
At the time, state lawmakers made $79,500 and Cuomo made $179,000.
Cuomo’s salary was increased to $200,000 in 2019, $225,000 in 2020 and $250,000 in 2021. But in November 2020, he deferred his latest raise, keeping his salary at $225,000, still the highest in the nation.
When awarding the raises for lawmakers, the commission in 2018 stipulated that the raise would limit outside income to no more than 15 percent of their legislative salary.
But a New York judge ruled that limiting outside pay wasn’t in the commission’s power and blocked that stipulation.
Lawmakers were scheduled to get raises in phases – from $79,900 in 2018 to $110,000 in January 2019, $120,000 in January 2020 and $130,000 in January 2021. But the pay was frozen at $110,000 once the outside pay provision was struck down.
At least 21 state lawmakers got elected, retired, and then got re-elected, utilizing a double-dipping loophole to collect a pension while collecting a state salary.
Cuomo’s campaign coffers are also full of cash, as there are 347 state vendors that gave $6.2 million in political donations to Cuomo between 2014 and 2019, even as the companies collected $7 billion in state payments.
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