ALBANY – At a time when state workers are being asked to forgo any pay hikes, the chief of staff to Gov. Paterson’s wife was given a $25,000 raise in December – plus a $3,866 bonus – even though she began working for the state only last July, The Post has learned.
The whopping 28.4 percent raise – granted while Paterson was asking 130,000 public employees to give up 3 percent pay hikes because of the state’s fiscal crisis – went to Michele Clarke-Ceres, who was hired on July 10 as an $88,000-a-year “special assistant,” records show.
Five months later, her salary was raised to $113,000 a year, retroactively effective to Oct. 2, giving her the windfall $3,866 bonus.
Clarke-Ceres’ name was not on the list of more than a dozen senior Paterson staffers who received pay hikes of as much as 46 percent made public by The Post last week because she’s not on the payroll of the governor’s central staff.
Despite Clarke-Ceres’ assignment to work for Michelle Paige Paterson, she’s listed as an employee of the Department of State – a catch-all agency used as sleight of hand to provide political jobs – and not as an employee of the governor’s office.
A Paterson administration source said, “Many of the governor’s employees have been placed on the payrolls of state agencies in order to make it look like the governor’s staff has been reduced.”
Paterson claimed last week that despite giving sky-high raises to many of his employees, the overall number of his immediate staff had been reduced in recent months.
Paterson spokesman Errol Cockfield said Clarke-Ceres initially served the governor as chief of protocol and was given the raise after taking on the additional responsibility as Mrs. Paterson’s chief of staff.
Cockfield said Clarke-Ceres replaced Denise Ellison, who had been paid $113,300 a year as Mrs. Paterson’s chief of staff, and is “doing double duty,” saving the state money in the process.
The Post reported last week that Paterson had handed out pay hikes worth about $250,000 annually after the governor declared an “emergency” budget situation in August.
After a storm of controversy and apparent criticism from Mayor Bloomberg, Paterson conceded he had second thoughts about granting the raises.
While Mrs. Paterson has no official responsibilities as New York’s first lady and holds a lucrative private-sector job, she often accompanies the governor at public events and makes occasional appearances on behalf of such causes as reducing childhood obesity.
The chief of staff to former First Lady Silda Wall Spitzer was hired at $100,000 a year and saw her salary rise to $120,000 and then $128,000 before she left the state payroll last spring.