The state’s top education honcho Betty Rosa on Wednesday defended scoring a hush-hush $155,000 raise — conveniently leaving out that she’s also double-dipping a plum pension, The Post has learned.
Rosa argued the quiet raise — a bombshell first reported by the Albany Times Union — puts her now-$489,000 annual salary as State Education Department commissioner and chair of Board of Regents more in line with a few lavishly compensated local superintendents.
She went on about her need to make more money to pay for her two residences, an Albany apartment and house in Rockland County.
“I hold two titles, 2.7 million kids, and I’m going to make less than when somebody who has 3,600 kids?” she whined.
But Rosa didn’t mention that she is also collecting a nearly $120,000 pension from her time as a Bronx principal and superintendent — a fact discovered by The Post in state records.
Property records also indicate Rosa has a third home in Texas.
An Education Department spokesperson defended Rosa’s pension.
“After a successful career in New York City schools, Commissioner Rosa earned a pension, just as she received a legitimate pay increase when appointed (University of the State of New York) President, both of which are entirely above board and legally authorized,” spokesperson JP O’Hare told The Post.
When asked by The Post how New York kids are better served by the raise, Rosa instead complained about the other superintendents who made more.
“This isn’t about being served, this is about… this is the salary,” she said. “I can turn around and say why your kids being better served in District X when the board negotiated – that is their answer to who they want as the superintendent.”
Rosa, who is now one of New York’s highest-paid public employees, spent much of Wednesday complaining up and down in front of state lawmakers about what she considered a lack of funding from Albany.
Indeed, the hearing over Gov. Kathy Hochul’s budget plan largely turned into a gripe session about education funding — although they had little to say about sagging-to-middling test scores.
Hochul’s budget proposal estimated this year’s school aid costs to run around $37.5 billion. School aid is the second-highest portion of state spending behind Medicaid.
The governor’s plan tweaks the complex formula that determines how much each school gets. Those proposed adjustments would use updated measures of poverty instead of 25-year-old census data.
But New York City Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos, who herself is the highest-paid city employee, grumbled that Big Apple schools could take what she estimates is a $350 million hit under the tweaks.
The grousing comes as New York education officials are under fire for lavish spending with only mediocre statewide test results to show for it.
“According to SED data, 59% of New York’s kids flunked their math exams last year — but I think even they can calculate that this insane pay raise doesn’t add up,” one Albany insider opined.
“New York spends more per student than any other state with basically nothing to show for it, and instead of taking action this Chancellor just celebrates the status quo. She’s lucky there’s no accountability on the other side of Washington Avenue.”
State Assemblyman Mike Fitzpatrick (R-Suffolk) said the state’s test results show Rosa’s raise is unwarranted.
“If New York State was number one in the country and was leading internationally, I couldn’t argue with paying Betty Rosa maybe a little more, but with the results that they’re producing here in New York state, it’s embarrassing,” he said. “She should decline that, because those superintendents she’s referring to, they’re all overpaid.”
