Breslin: There will be ‘hundreds’ of Senate layoffs

Deputy Minority Leader Neil Breslin, D-Bethlehem, said “we’re talking hundreds” of layoffs among state Senate staffers to come down tomorrow.

During a two-year stint in the majority, his fellow Democrats exceeded their budget by over $10 million, Republicans now in control of the chamber said. Breslin is serving as the Democratic representative on the transition committee, which met Tuesday morning.

“There will be a significant reduction in the staff and hopefully that will put us where we need to be,” he said. “What’s we’re going to do is reduce the allocation for members in a more equitable manner.”

I don’t quite know what to read from that last sentence, but, well, I suspect Breslin may have felt the same way speaking it.

Meanwhile, as new senators staff up, several dozen people have been hired (or, in many cases, re-hired). The below list from the Office of the State Comptroller shows staff changes in the chamber since I checked last week, and reveals that Tommy Testo is paid $57.50 per hour to read from the Senate rostrum.

  1. pat from toga says:

    Why are Senate Republicans hiring staff?! They don’t need any more, we need cuts of the Democrats AND Republican staffs..NOT NEW HIRES! What do these people NOT get??

  2. jfcsoup says:

    Word usage in paragraph 4 (no). KNo wonder people don’t want to be taxed any more for the lack of education of our youth.

  3. chumley says:

    For once lead by example. Make it thousands. The taxpayers are finished paying for these useless staffers. Close the LOB and sell it to a private business.

  4. Just My Opinion says:

    This is great to read, not that I like seeing people lose their jobs, but coming from the private sector, when we over spend, we have to make hard cuts. State should do it too.

  5. Andrew says:

    Dem’s over spend??? NEVER!

  6. Ugh says:

    Agreed – more cuts needed. While I support Cuomo’s initial efforts to get his arms around this mess, it is not enough to balance the budget and cap property tax increases when you’re running the highest taxed state in the nation. More spending reductions are needed to actually reduce taxes, not just to limit their increase.

  7. kevin says:

    should be thousands

  8. Down with Pedro says:

    Yeah, cuts! Lets cut tax expenditures like the STAR rebate (nothing more than redistribution of income taxes), that alone is around $3B. Lets also cut all those business tax incentives (more billions) and any mortgage reductions as well – after all, government spends way too much…..

  9. Jim says:

    Why were there so many political appointees there in the first place. The next step is to sweep State Agencies and remove many of the political appointees. Agencies are top heavy with appointees. Waste of taxpayer monies. Watch many of these people be placed in civil service protected jobs.

  10. Upstate says:

    The Republicans should be laying off two Democrats for every Republican hired, similar to what the Democrats did 2 years ago. That would be equitable.

  11. Sue Myers says:

    I can understand having someone do constituent services, but liaison to local governments or community affairs? Isn’t that one of the responsibilities of the person we elected?

  12. Upstate says:

    We cannot trust most of the workers that Breslin, Sampson, and Malcolm Smith hired. Remember the scandals, and know that the Republicans need to put people that they can trust in the senate offices. The democrats called it the spoils of victory not that long ago, when they were firing the longtime senate staff that they and the republicans hired over the prior 30 plus years. What goes around comes around.

    Make the Democratic Senators payback the $9 million that they overspent on themselves and their staff last year.

    Remember the Dems spent like $35 million between 32 democratic senators and staff while the republicans spent like $16 million on 30 republican senators and staff.

  13. Just saying... says:

    Pat from Toga, the Republicans have very little staff as evidenced by them coming in $2 million under budget. They need some more staff, but not much, to run Government operations of the Chamber. That is why they are hiring.

    Just Saying….

  14. Dave says:

    Just like Obamacare bankrupting the states with billions in Medicaid costs we can’t afford and even democrat states are cutting Medicaid and just like Obama bribing the private sector unions with trillions in bailouts and debt for the public sector unions that voted him out and left us taxpayers with a bloated inefficient and obscenely expensive government and debt that we must now cut and lay off.. and the trillions in debt.. Did I mention the biggest debt in history!!

  15. Upstate says:

    I think that the last numbers I saw on the Senate Website was 1568 employees, the democrats probably had 1100 and the republicans 468, somewhat proportional to their expenditures.

    Democrats should have 468 and the republicans about 750, but the democrats should only get 268 because they need to repay the $9,000,000 that they overspent compared to last years budget.

    Two hundred personnel, with $45,000 average pay per year would be $9,000,000. Is that equitable Neil?

  16. waterwolf says:

    Go through this list and add up the cost. THIS IS WHY THE STATE IS BROKE, not because of state employees. These are all patronage jobs. State Assembly and Senate consider the state treasury as their own piggy-bank. They hire friends and relatives to patrionage jobs…..and WE PAY. The media is after state employees when they should go after patrionage jobs. If state taxpayers only knew how many relatives were on the payroll………….the second cousin of the wife of a commissioner brought in without taking a test at Grade 18 was promoted to 23 then 27 and made permanent. Commissioner, you stole my tax dollars AND pension money.

  17. ezpickinz says:

    Democrat Senate deserves to lose staffing; they fluffed up their ranks for the past two years and now have to pay Peter without giving Paul an economic migraine.
    I just cannot wait until ‘Handy Andy’ brings about doom and destruction; death and devastation to NY State. Sorta like ‘Famine and Pestilence’; my two favorite kitty cats here at the compound.

  18. I see waste says:

    I want lower taxes, I want lower taxes, I want lower taxes, I want lower taxes,I want lower taxes, I want lower taxes, I want lower taxes, I want lower taxes,I want lower taxes, I want lower taxes, I want lower taxes, I want lower taxes,I want lower taxes, I want lower taxes, I want lower taxes, I want lower taxes,I want lower taxes, I want lower taxes, I want lower taxes, I want lower taxes,I want lower taxes, I want lower taxes, I want lower taxes, I want lower taxes,I want lower taxes, I want lower taxes, I want lower taxes, I want lower taxes.

    Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.

  19. CutToTheBone says:

    The staffs of both parties need to be trimmed to the bone. This state can no longer afford the vast number of political hacks feeding from the trough…

  20. marilyn says:

    The republicans didn’t rehire everyone back that should have been rehired. Just a bunch of political favors. And ti think Tom Testo who just stood there an read names please any idiot can do that and be paid near 60 an hour is an outrage! So that is where the money goes go figure reps are as abad as the dems

  21. MadamCrabapple says:

    The Dems should pony up the $10 million they overspent on their budget from their campaign funds. Why should taxpayers bear the burden of their fiscal irresponsibility? Next, each representative (Senate or Assembly) gets the exact same amount to spend on their offices & staff, and the amount should be the average that the Repubs spent per staff last year.
    That would be socializing the legislative process & should work for the Dems since they seem to like redistribution of taxpayer money.

  22. Lawrence says:

    The dems have screwed the people and now the G.O.P. are in charge they deserve to hire their own people. The left over from the dems are the problem. Nobody was complaining as the dems raise salaries and hired more people than authorized. I agree that we could do with 50 percent less people. Taxes wont go down as the dems will find another way to spend it.

  23. Sophia Walker says:

    17 Comments and all but two of the commenters have any clue whatsoever about how anything works in the legislature.

    Does the tea party pay you guys?

  24. I will say this again Dean Skelos needs to cut the Senate budget by 25% or more.

    This will send the strongest message to all that the days of the “GOLDEN” Senate is over.


    VJ Machiavelli

  25. CarlGottsteinJr. says:

    It’s hard buts it’s fair.

    When it happened to the GOP you did not have a care.

    Silent no more.

  26. Alan says:

    Cut all staff in both parties by 50%. They don’t need all these staffers in the first place.

  27. Can you say patronage! says:

    I see no surprises here, except that Senator Breslin seems to have no clue as to why?? This is all smoke and mirrors, he was a major player when the senate had control, and for him to not fully understand is crazy.. So to clarify, the republicans are in the majority and the democratic patronage positions will be cut.. it is simple as that..

    And yes I WANT LOWER TAXES, income, property, school, state taxes on cell phones, cable, phone bills, gasoline taxes, utility taxes and every other damn tax that was thrust at us for over 20 years to just keep pouring money into the general fund to keep afloat… enough is enough…. WE WANT LOWER TAXES!

  28. Decelsior says:

    A fewer Breslins in office and on the bench would also be a good thing. I’d rather see them as Walmart greeters. We need to stop worshiping dynasties. When I see a relative on the ballot, I vote the other way.

  29. Walt says:

    The state payroll makes up only 1% of the state budget. Medicaid makes up 40%! Welfare makes up 20%. Education makes up 25%. The cuts need to come form areas where all the money is spent. This means entitlement programs need to be cut drastically to bring them in line with other states. Education spending needs to be cut. School shave not done enough to cut because they have not had to! Electives make up 80% odf a school’s curriculum. In bad financial times, electives need to be cut drastically and teachser let go. Classroom size needs to be increased 50%! The only way to force this to happen is to cap taxes at 2% per year increase. Cut back state aid to school districts forcing them to be more accountable to the taxpayers. Change the rules so ans austarity budget can be no higher than the previous budget.

  30. Government Gangsters says:

    I’ll keep writing it until everyone gets it…there are two classes of state workers: the peons (took tests, or are at least qualified for their jobs) and “friends and family” (the royal court, aka patronage). Kindly direct your anger appropriately.

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