New York state Senate Republicans on Friday eviscerated the Board of Regents for its approval of a secret $155,000 pay raise for top schools boss Betty Rosa, calling it yet another example of “out-of-control spending.”
The lawmakers, in a scathing letter, urged the 15-member panel to reconsider the “unwarranted and offensive pay increase,” which brought Rosa, the State Education Department commissioner and Board of Regents chair, to a whopping $489,000 annual salary.
Rosa, as The Post revealed this week, is also cashing in on a nearly $120,000 pension from her time as a Bronx principal and superintendent, which the GOP pols pointed out means she’s pocketing over $600,000 total in taxpayer cash.
“New Yorkers are struggling to pay their bills,” the 16 lawmakers, led by state Senate Minority Leader Robert Ortt, wrote in the letter. “When the median household income in New York State is $81,000, it is incomprehensible that a raise twice that amount to a public official who was already making four times the median household income was approved by you as board members.”
The letter added that: “Reckless spending such as Commissioner Rosa’s raise is just another example of out-of-control spending we are seeing year-after-year in this State, culminating in this year’s state budget proposal of a whopping $252 billion.”
On top of that, the pols noted that New York schoolkids’ test scores continue to lag behind national averages.
The “Nation’s Report Card” released Wednesday showed that two-thirds of New York City fourth graders are not proficient in math and even fewer proved proficient in reading – despite the Empire State funneling more money into its schools than any other in the nation.
“To add further insult to injury, Commissioner Rosa is leading a department where policies are
failing to improve test scores for New York’s children,” the letter said.
“New York continues to lag the national average in math scores for fourth and eighth graders and is only average in reading scores despite spending more money per pupil than any other state in the country.”
The Board of Regents was contacted for comment.
