I’ve reported some horror stories about bureaucrats ripping off taxpayers with lavish compensation packages, including:
- The chief bureaucrat of a low-income California city getting almost $800,000 per year.
- Cops in Oakland getting average compensation of $188,000.
- A Philadelphia bureaucrat, after working only 2-1/2 years, nailing down a guaranteed pension of $50,000 per year.
- A New York school bureaucrat simultaneously getting a $225,000 salary and $300,000 pension.
- California taxpayers being forced to pay a fired bureaucrat $550,000 for unused vacation time.
- An employee of the New Jersey Turnpike system raking in annual compensation of $320,000.
We now have another über-bureaucrat to add to our list.
Here are the key details from the New York Post.
Take your salary cap and shove it. While Gov. Cuomo continues to push a bill that would limit New York school superintendents’ annual salaries to $175,000, Syosset, LI, Superintendent Carole Hankin — the highest paid in the state —has already circumvented the proposed ceiling. Last June, four months after Cuomo first proposed the salary cap, Hankin, 69, quietly inked a five-year contract that guarantees she will receive no less than her current salary— $405,244, The Post has learned. …“This is despicable and gives new meaning to the word ‘chutzpah,’ ” said Desmond Ryan, executive director of the Association for a Better Long Island, a developer’s lobby. “In these difficult economic times, that the school board would even consider this is a disgrace.” …Hankin’s total annual compensation comes to $537,767, including retirement funds and fringe benefits. Expenses include use of a “late-model car” and gas. She can also do outside consulting on her time off. She oversees about 6,600 students in 10 schools, yet her salary is nearly double that of New York City Chancellor Dennis Walcott, who gets $212,614, to watch over 1.1 million kids in 1,700 schools. Hankin’s first deputy, Jeffrey Streitman, rakes in $419,033 in salary and other benefits, but Cuomo’s bill would not apply to underlings. …Joshua Lafazan, an 18-year-old Syosset HS senior running for a seat on the school board, blasts Hankin’s cushy deal and the nine board members he calls her “puppets.”
Ms. Hankin and the other bureaucrats mentioned above are extreme examples, but they help underscore the problem that exists when politicians and bureaucrat unions make insider deals, swapping political support for lavish compensation levels.
Taxpayers, meanwhile, get screwed. This video explains why this is a problem at all levels of government.
What makes this so outrageous is that most bureaucrats get overpaid for position that shouldn’t even exist. If we shrink government to its proper size, the problem is mostly resolved.
[…] school superintendent in New York raking in more than $500 thousand of annual […]
[…] school superintendent in New York raking in more than $500 thousand of annual […]
[…] school superintendent in New York raking in more than $500 thousand of annual […]
[…] school superintendent in New York raking in more than $500 thousand of annual […]
[…] school superintendent in New York raking in more than $500 thousand of annual […]
[…] school superintendent in New York raking in more than $500 thousand of annual […]
[…] school superintendent in New York raking in more than $500 thousand of annual […]
[…] school superintendent in New York raking in more than $500 thousand of annual […]
[…] school superintendent in New York raking in more than $500 thousand of annual […]
[…] school superintendent in New York raking in more than $500 thousand of annual […]
[…] school superintendent in New York raking in more than $500 thousand of annual […]
This is a state that voted for Hillary. They pretty well deserve what they get.
Why is OWS not camped on her lawn?
There are literally thousands of stories just like this. Here in Las Vegas we recently had a GSA conference which cost $823,000.
According to Las Vegas Review-Journal the GSA got the hotel to “give the conference the $93-a-night government hotel rate” for which the “conference will spend an additional $41,480 on catering to make up for it…” They would “…provide free rooms to a contractor’s employees, though the audio-visual contract cost of nearly $62,000 from Royal Productions included the cost of housing the technicians…” Also, “…a GSA program director…” (did) “… tell a vendor what the budget is for a team-building training day, so that the vendor gets the maximum $75,000 possible…” And there was much, much more.
What I question about the whole thing is why we are surprised?
We have a 200 year history of cheating the government, of cost over-runs, of fact finding missions to resorts, of “cost-plus” contracts, and kick backs. We have a current administration which has added 5 trillion to the debt in 3 years!
Failure? Blowing it off? Here is just a few: Solyndra (500 million down the drain), sweetheart deals with GE, GM, (Jeff Immelt GE-CEO and “Job Czar”), Ener1, a New York based company which makes lithium-ion batteries for plug-in electric cars, scrutinized by federal auto- safety officials after a General Motors Co. Chevrolet Volt caught fire ($118 million loss of our money).
How about personal attitudes? Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan has a great attitude:
“In other words, the federal government is here saying: we’re giving you a boatload of money. There are no, is no matching funds requirement. There are no extraneous conditions attached to it. It’s just a boatload of federal money for you to take and spend on poor people’s healthcare. It doesn’t sound coercive to me, I have to tell you.”
Really? Not coercive? Where does that money come from? It ain’t free, it ain’t federal, and collected at the point of the IRS’s guns. It’s ultimately our money, our debt, and our future. What is the mindset she is demonstrating?
Whoopee! Party on dude! Free money! Crank up the presses!
Look at our President and First Lady.
A trip to Spain, multiple trips to Hawaii, skiing at Vail, and don’t forget Martha’s Vineyard at $50,000 a week for the lodging. Campaign trips on the public dime? Gotta have a new RV for the bus tour!
Golf anyone? Obama played his 90th round of golf in December 2011. During the same amount of time Bush had played 24. Obama starts work at 0930, Bush started at 0630.
What a deal. The pay isn’t great, but the bennies and connections are really something! Close enough for government work.
The attitude is cultural (entitlement American) and permeates from the top down and bottom up.
Don’t worry, The financing all came from that “boatload of Federal money!
Is Superintendent Carole Hankin really 69? Then why hasn’t she retired?
Seems as though there may be a case for corruption charges brought against those who signed her new contract. What was their inducement to agree to such overpayment?