A Costly Hire

Permitting public employees to collect a six-figure pension while simultaneously collecting a six-figure salary is one of the reasons why New York is such a high-tax state. Though the Village of Southampton took it a step further: It wasn’t enough for the new village administrator to receive a $165,000 salary on top of a $120,000 New York Police Department pension — the Village Board just gave Administrator Anthony Carter a $50,000 pay bump, retroactive to when he started in November, in lieu of receiving village health insurance and other benefits.

When a retiree already receiving taxpayer-funded health care goes back to work in a government position, there should be a savings achieved. Taxpayers should not be on the hook to fork over that money, anyway, to someone who is already well compensated.

There are many employees in the private sector who would love to receive a pay bump in lieu of health insurance because they are already getting family health insurance through a spouse’s employer or by some other means. But that, with rare exception, is not how things work in the real world. It’s only in government where the taxpayers pay an employee twice over for the same benefit.

Because Carter is under 65 years old, New York State Civil Service must grant the village a waiver to allow him to collect more than $35,000 annually in village pay while still collecting his pension. But this waiver is not a pro forma request. The village must demonstrate that, after “extensive recruitment efforts,” it could not find a qualified, non-retiree candidate.

According to the village’s waiver application, the search was called off after less than two weeks. The village reported that three other hopefuls sought the position, but none of them met the qualifications. But it’s obvious why no one else could fulfill the requirements of the village’s job posting: It sought candidates with prior experience in “police department supervision or oversight.” This prerequisite, which was not asked of prior village administrators in Southampton, excluded administrator candidates from Long Island and throughout the state who had municipal administrative experience but couldn’t claim police experience.

For the role of village administrator, experience in a village or town hall is the most important proficiency to possess. Carter’s police experience was valuable when he applied to be the village police chief in 2022, but requiring that experience for the role of village administrator only worked to exclude other candidates with skill sets that are a natural fit for the position.

Carter was offered, and accepted, the position of Southampton Village chief of police in December 2022, before turning around in January 2023 and declining the job. Then-Mayor Jesse Warren was the lone vote against hiring Carter, and the village trustees blamed Warren’s public comments for Carter ultimately turning down the post. The current administration, led by Mayor Bill Manger, gave Carter the administrator job as an apparent make-good. Sorry things didn’t work out for the chief’s job — but how would you like to run Village Hall for $215,000 a year, on top of that generous pension?

If the Civil Service Commission grants the waiver when it meets in May, the waiver would only be valid until January 30, 2026, at the latest. The village will have to advertise the position again if it wants to keep Carter in that seat, and it will have to prove to Civil Service, again, that it couldn’t find anyone else who was both qualified and not retired. But the village will have plenty of advance notice, and a truncated recruiting period will not be tolerated.

If the commission decides to decline the waiver request, Carter would have to forgo his pension until he retires again and pay back what he’s received already for the year in order to stay on the village’s payroll.

It was Warren who complained to the Civil Service Commission, forcing the village to defend its decisions before the body later this month, but it was the current administration that put Carter in this unenviable position. The administration never should have posted a job listing that was narrowly tailored to the exclusion of many qualified public servants, and it should have taken the recruitment process seriously from the beginning. All in all, taxpayers are getting the short end of the deal.