Last Minute Changes Requested In Broome County Budget

Even with the 2014 budget for Broome County finalized, two of the county’s top officials are asking for a last-minute change to the spending plan. County Executive Debbie Preston and County Clerk Richard Blythe are both asking Broome County Legislature to consider a resolution at its meeting on Thursday that would eliminate their pay raises they are due for next year. Preston and Blythe say they are asking for their raises to be given back after the legislature decided to eliminate pay increases for about 150 non-union, administrative county employees. The combined raises of those employees would total close to $156,000 next year. Preston and Blythe say that without their people getting the increases, it would not be fair for them to receive a raise themselves. Preston would negate a pay increase of over $1,500 to keep her salary at just over $92,000, and Blythe would forgo a raise of over $1,300 to keep his salary at just over $80,000. In the budget Preston had originally introduced for 2014, those non-union workers received raises, and over 50 of those workers had taken pay cuts in 2012. In November, the county legislature voted unanimously to eliminate the pay raises for the workers in the budget before approving it.