New York state Senate Republicans on Friday eviscerated the Board of Regents for its approval of a secret $155,000 pay increase for high faculties boss Betty Rosa, calling it one more instance of “out-of-control spending.”
The lawmakers, in a scathing letter, urged the 15-member panel to rethink the “unwarranted and offensive pay improve,” which introduced Rosa, the State Training Division commissioner and Board of Regents chair, to a whopping $489,000 annual wage.
Rosa, as The Publish revealed this week, can be cashing in on an almost $120,000 pension from her time as a Bronx principal and superintendent, which the GOP pols identified means she’s pocketing over $600,000 whole in taxpayer money.
“New Yorkers are struggling to pay their payments,” the 16 lawmakers, led by state Senate Minority Chief Robert Ortt, wrote within the letter. “When the median family earnings in New York State is $81,000, it’s incomprehensible {that a} increase twice that quantity to a public official who was already making 4 occasions the median family earnings was authorized by you as board members.”
The letter added that: “Reckless spending comparable to Commissioner Rosa’s increase is simply one other instance of out-of-control spending we’re seeing year-after-year on this State, culminating on this 12 months’s state finances proposal of a whopping $252 billion.”
On high of that, the pols famous that New York schoolkids’ take a look at scores proceed to lag behind nationwide averages.
The “Nation’s Report Card” launched Wednesday confirmed that two-thirds of New York Metropolis fourth graders will not be proficient in math and even fewer proved proficient in studying – regardless of the Empire State funneling extra money into its faculties than every other within the nation.
“So as to add additional insult to harm, Commissioner Rosa is main a division the place insurance policies are
failing to enhance take a look at scores for New York’s youngsters,” the letter mentioned.
“New York continues to lag the nationwide common in math scores for fourth and eighth graders and is just common in studying scores regardless of spending extra money per pupil than every other state within the nation.”
The Board of Regents was contacted for remark.
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