Andreatta: The sheriff's pay charade

What should the Monroe County sheriff get paid?

A) $168,124.

B) $128,621.

C) $149,376.

D) $174,000.

E)​ All of the above, depending on how firmly entrenched the sitting sheriff is in the job.

This being Monroe County, where underhanded political maneuvering has defined the tiresome saga of the sheriff's salary for years now, the answer of course is E.

That's what a commission appointed by the Monroe County Legislature to settle the matter concluded on Monday, when it recommended the position of sheriff be subject to a pay scale of 12 annual step increases, ranging from $128,621 for a newcomer to a cap of $174,000.

As for Sheriff Patrick O'Flynn, who started this mess in 2011 when he got the legislature's Old Boys' Club to ram through a bill that would have hiked his pay to $174,000 by 2014 had the old boys not gotten cold feet and eventually amended the legislation, the commission recommended that he be placed on the sixth step of $149,376 by 2017, when he would be up for re-election.

If O'Flynn keeps getting re-elected, he'll get his $174,000 by 2023. If a new sheriff gets elected, that person would do the job in his or her first year for the relatively bargain-basement price of $128,621, and climb from there.

Unequal pay for equal work. What's fair about that? Nothing.

In creating the pay scale, the Monroe County Compensation Policy Commission defied its own foremost principle that, "Elected officials should be fairly paid for the duties they perform." The pay scale links the sheriff's pay to tenure.

Then again, the commission wasn't convened to be fair. It was convened to give the Old Boys' Club cover.

The county charter states that the sheriff's salary shall not rise without a recommendation by the commission. Yet, that's exactly what happened in 2011, when the legislature gave O'Flynn a bump in pay to his current $136,700.

Consider, too, that two of the seven members appointed to the commission, Chairman Robert Hurlbut and John Kraus, are directors of the Monroe County Sheriff's Foundation, a charity co-founded by O'Flynn to raise money for the Sheriff's Office.

That might explain Hurlbut's hostility when a commissioner made the reasonable request at an earlier meeting to have O'Flynn testify about the duties of his job. "That's not happening, get over it," Hurlbut told the commissioner.

What a charade.

In New York City, a similar commission is currently examining whether to recommend modifying the pay of 64 elected officials. There, the so-called Quadrennial Advisory Commission invited officials to explain the duties of their jobs.

R. Kyle Alagood, that commission's research director, said responses were received for 58 of the elected offices in the form of letters or direct testimony.

Rank-and-file civil service jobs are typically tied to pay scales, which are usually negotiated by unions. The salaries of many non-unionized government managers, including those in Monroe County, are also tied to pay scales that factor in cost-of-living increases.

But pay scales for elected officials are rare. Although state law provides for pay scales for elected offices, they're usually reserved for positions like highway superintendent, which for reasons lost to time and common sense remains an elected post in some jurisdictions.

Most elected officials are expected to do the jobs to which they were voted in for the salary assigned to the position — a salary that should be commensurate with their duties.

Going forward, it appears a new sheriff wanting a fair salary in Monroe County will just have to sit tight.

David Andreatta is a Democrat and Chronicle columnist. He can be reached at DANDREATTA@Gannett.com.