ELIZABETHTOWN — Essex County Board of Supervisors members gave themselves a 30% pay bump this year.

The board’s chairman, Shaun Gillilland of Willsboro, described the raise as an effort to entice a younger and more diverse crowd to run for office. Supervisors voted unanimously — with the exception of Keene town Supervisor Joe Pete Wilson, Jr., St. Armand town Supervisor Davina Winemiller and Minerva town Supervisor Stephen McNally, who were absent — to give themselves a 30% pay bump on Jan. 4, increasing a supervisors’ base salary from $21,432 in 2022 to $28,000 this year.

These salaries are for the supervisors’ county-level work only. Each town supervisor is also paid a salary from the coffers of the town they serve.

There is extra pay for extra duties. The chairman, Gillilland, will now be paid $33,000 for his county work — up from $26,432 last year. Moriah town Supervisor Tom Scozzafava, who is the county’s budget liaison, will be paid $30,000, up from $23,432 last year.

The supervisors’ new $28,000 yearly salary does not include reimbursements for mileage and travel or health insurance deductions. Essex County supervisors in the Enterprise’s coverage area, including their town salaries but not including any outside income, mileage or benefits, now roughly make the following: North Elba town Supervisor Derek Doty, $68,695 per year; Keene town Supervisor Joe Pete Wilson, Jr., $62,778 per year; St. Armand town Supervisor Davina Winemiller, $59,440 per year; Wilmington town Supervisor Roy Holzer, $55,805 per year.

The Jay town clerk’s office did not respond to repeated requests from the Enterprise for a copy of the town’s 2023 budget by deadline Monday. Asked what his salary is, Jay town Supervisor Matt Stanley did not respond for comment by deadline Monday.

So far, opposition to the raise is hard to find. The Enterprise reached out to several residents, former candidates, government watchdogs and a union representative but heard little response.

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Wanted: new candidates

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Gillilland said the primary reason for the pay raises is encouraging more competition during election season by offering a more liveable wage to town supervisors.

Historically, the people who have run to fill county leadership positions were those who could afford it, according to Gillilland.

“If you take a look back at these old pictures, who ran Essex County 150 years ago … it was a patriarchy. It was the people in power, who were already rich, who ran for public service. That’s who became town supervisors. That’s not healthy for the county. We need people who are in their 30s and 40s to run for town supervisor,” he said.

“When I first came on the board here in 2014, it was all men, gray hair. They were either surviving on retirement and a job, or some of them, like Tom Scozzafava, supplemented with electrical work, second jobs,” said Gillilland, who also operates a farm in Willsboro. “The pay scales across the county were just widely divergent. Some of them … if they had to live off just what they were getting paid, it would be under the poverty line. That’s just wrong.”

That’s not quite true, considering the town portion of the supervisors’ pay. The federal poverty line is $30,000 for a family of four. In New York, it’s $27,740 for a household of four, according to the state Comptroller’s Office.

Essex County Democratic Committee Chair Margaret Bartley, who served as Elizabethtown supervisor from 2012 to 2013, said she believes offering a higher wage “is the only way to attract qualified people to our communities.”

“Younger people will invest in their community when they buy a home and send their children to local schools,” she said on March 22. “But when I talk to people in their 30s, 40s and 50s, they said they can’t afford to run for office. The cost of a home, children and investment in their health insurance and company pensions have eliminated the next generation of men and women from elected office. Having to run for office every two or four years in order to keep their job does not work for most people with mortgages and growing families.

“When I took office in 2012, my salary was $20,000 from the town and $18,000 from the county,” Bartley said. “The only reason I could afford to run for office was because I was retired from my job as a teacher, my husband had retired, and my children were grown.

“I had some basic technical skills, but had to turn to younger people when it came to the more sophisticated tasks,” she added. “Today, town supervisors have to manage a town budget in the millions of dollars, while obeying all aspects state and federal law.”

Gillilland, who is also chair of the Essex County Republican Committee, said there was no longer much incentive for a young person with a family to run for town supervisor.

“They can probably get paid more if they work at Stewart’s,” he added.

Many Stewart’s employees would not make as much as supervisors — however, according to Glassdoor, a national job search engine and review site, Stewart’s managers are paid an estimated base pay of $57,136 per year; upward of $82,267 including stock and bonuses.

Reached by phone Monday, Winemiller, an independent from St. Armand, who was sick and excused from the January meeting, said she probably would’ve voted to approve the pay raise, citing increased responsibilities shouldered by town supervisors and the need to attract a more diverse range of candidates. After taxes and health care costs, Winemiller said the pay increase adds up to an additional “$60 every two weeks, basically.”

Wilson, a Democrat from Keene, could not be reached by deadline Monday.

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“Incredibly large raise”

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Saranac Lake resident Fred Balzac said this is an “incredibly large raise” for a board that meets once a week.

Balzac has run for office seven times in Jay, North Elba and Saranac Lake, including two runs at supervisor — once for Jay supervisor in 1995 and for North Elba town supervisor in 2019. He said pay never played a role in his decisions to run.

“It’s nice that they’re talking about encouraging other people to run, but I don’t know that a $7,000 increase is going to do it,” he said.

He said while it is not a large dollar amount increase, it is a large raise percentage-wise.

“We’re dealing with inflation and we’re dealing with a local economy that is really not that good for most people,” Balzac said.

In his view, pay raises are not the solution. Balzac believes the board of supervisors system divides supervisors’ loyalties between the town and county.

“Who is minding the store?” he asked. “The people of Essex County deserves a county government that is focused only on county matters and policies, not people who are basically worrying about their town the other four-and-a-half days of the week.”

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Longtime incumbents

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The Essex County Board of Supervisors has for years largely been a body of longtime incumbents, many of whom are nearing or have surpassed retirement age. Scozzafava is the longest-serving supervisor in the county, first elected in 1985. He has led the town of Moriah for more than three decades; he plans to step down in December.

The board reflects an aging county. Nearly 25% of the county’s estimated 37,381 population is now 65 years old or older, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. People between the ages of 18 to 24 make up the smallest percentage of the population at just 6%.

Over the past decade, town supervisor races in Essex County have rarely been contested. There have been 79 races for supervisor across Essex County since 2013, and 57 of those — or just over 72% — were uncontested, not including rare challenges by write-in, according to county election records.

The town of North Elba has term limits for supervisors. According to Gillilliand, there’s been no discussion related to term limits at the county level.

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Calculating a new salary

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The supervisors’ new $28,000 base pay is 44% higher than just five years ago, when it was $19,325, according to county documents obtained by the Enterprise.

Between 2003 and 2013, supervisors’ pay increased by an average of 1.6% each year. In 2005, then-county Manager Cliff Donaldson declared a hiring freeze as supervisors worked to balance the county budget. Starting in 2010, Essex County declared a budget crisis and began slashing expenses and laying off staff, and in 2013 the county imposed a hiring freeze again as lawmakers worked to balance the budget. The county’s CSEA union, which represents many employees, initially rejected a contract offer that year because it included no pay raise for 2013, a 1% pay raise for 2014 and a 2% raise for 2015.

The head of the county’s CSEA union was not available for comment for this story by deadline Monday.

Between 2013 and 2023, supervisors’ pay increased by an average of 4.4% each year. In the county’s current union contract, all hourly employees’ pay was raised by 4% this year and last year, not including any adjustments related to how long each employee has worked for the county.

County Manager Mike Mascarenas said in an email that the increase to the supervisors’ salaries this year was made “due to several years of no adjustments to salaries.” He noted that because supervisors are managers and not part of a union, supervisors “do not always receive the negotiated increases,” and in 2004, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013, “there were 0% increase to salaries for these positions.”

“The new salaries were arrived at by looking back at those years and adding 3%,” Mascarenas said. “We essentially said, ‘Where would those salaries be today had those increases been figured in during those years where nothing was received?'”

Winemiller noted that during the pandemic, county and many town employees also received bonuses funded by the federal government’s coronavirus aid package, and in St. Armand, she and the town board did not take bonuses.

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Travel and health care

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Last year, the county’s 18 supervisors were paid a total of $30,792 for travel expenses and mileage, according to county documents obtained by the Enterprise following a Freedom of Information Law request.

Travel and mileage reimbursements in 2022 ranged from $0 for Elizabethtown Supervisor Noel Merrihew, whose town hall is located directly next to the county complex, to $4,035 for Minerva town Supervisor Stephen McNally, who travels roughly 50 miles — each way — to attend county meetings in Elizabethtown. McNally logged a total of 5,504 miles last year. Supervisors in the Enterprise coverage area were reimbursed anywhere from $621 (Wilson) to $1,933 (Winemiller).

Mascarenas said supervisors do not receive additional pay for each committee they serve on.

Asked if supervisors receive health care benefits through the county, and if so, what benefits they received, Mascarenas said supervisors are offered health care benefits “just like any other employee of the county is,” and “whether they accept the plan or not is a personal choice, based on what other coverages they may have due to previous employment, age, etc.”

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Staff Writer Aaron Marbone contributed reporting.