ALBANY – A top state housing official – who is married to one of Gov. Spitzer‘s close aides – is set to quietly receive a $46,000-a-year pay raise, The Post has learned.
Priscilla Almodovar, who since Jan. 25 has been CEO and president of the State of New York Mortgage Agency, the state Housing Finance Agency, and three other small housing agencies, is due to have the raise approved tomorrow by the board overseeing the agencies.
Almodovar is the wife of Spitzer’s handpicked insurance superintendent, Eric Dinallo, a close friend of the governor who served under him in the Attorney General’s Office.
The planned pay hike to $250,000 a year, up from her current $204,350, has angered some officials at the agencies who say it not only dwarfs the salary of her more experienced predecessor but also comes at a time when state lawmakers and judges have been so far unsuccessfully pushing for their own raises.
“This is a very bad precedent,” said a senior SONYMA official.
“She’s new to the job and giving her a 25 percent pay raise will lead to pressures throughout state government for pay raises of an equal level.”
Almodovar, who served as deputy policy director on Spitzer’s campaign for governor last year, is seen by SONYMA insiders as getting “special consideration” because she is married to Dinallo.
“This is clearly coming on orders from the Governor’s Office,” a source said.
Philip Lentz, a spokesman for the five housing agencies, defended the raise as a way to reflect her experience and the job she has done and strongly denied the Governor’s Office was involved.
“This will be a decision by the board to reward Priscilla for the job she has done in her first year,” Lentz said. He noted that she is not paid with taxpayer dollars, but from revenue generated by the agencies through fees and interest charged on loans.
Lentz said that by the end of this year, the agency will have issued $1.4 billion in municipal bonds in the public market, making it the largest issuer of housing bonds in the country.
He also noted that in 2006, SONYMA financed the construction or preservation of 1,200 affordable units and is on track to finance more than 4,000 units this year.