Albany County officials are scrutinizing a salary bonus the District Attorney gave himself.
Albany County District Attorney David Soares is defending a salary bonus he gave himself and other staffers from a state grant.
According to reports by the Times Union and WRGB Thursday, the Democrat is facing scrutiny from Albany County Comptroller Sue Rizzo, who is reviewing the pay bump. "It was a matter of routine review that it was discovered a payment was made to the county district attorney," Rizzo said. "And there is a judicial law section 183A, that indicates that the district attorney salary is set by the state. And it requires a local law to increase that dollar amount. It is true there was a longevity as well as a payment for a bonus or enhanced pay. And that is under review."
Speaking on WAMC Friday, Soares claimed there was no wrongdoing:
"The fact of the matter is we received funding from the Division of Criminal Justice, under an aid to prosecution grant, a pre-existing grant that has supplemented my income for my entire career here in Albany County," Soares said. "And we received more this time. In other words, we usually receive about $200,000. This time, we received close to a million, and it's a permissible expense to provide bonuses to staff, which is exactly what I did included myself in in that bonus pool."
Mark Grimm is a Republican Albany County Legislator from District 28 and ranking member of the Audit and Finance committee. "Anytime there's a possibility that taxpayer money was spent inappropriately, then it's the legislature's responsibility to address it and fix it. The district attorney salary is set by law and it has to match the county judge salary in each county. And the district attorney is not allowed to take additional compensation unless there's a local law that approves it," said Grimm.
Soares contends it’s not about salary. “We weren't guaranteed to receive the same amount next year. So I didn't view it as a salary change and therefore, not unnecessary, not necessarily native, a local law. But everything that we did, we did transparently, went before the legislature, all of those proceedings are available to people online, if they want to if they want to see those exchanges," Soares said.
Again, Grimm: "The key here is the grant money was apparently sent on bonuses for salaries. And grant money is typically for in this case discovery," said Grimm. 'It's a lot of red tape is passed on to district attorneys. Every county got some money from the state to address the additional need to deal with this red tape. But the question is, was this money used inappropriately?"
Soares says "no." "I stand by my decision to take the resources that were provided to us by the state and provide the 11% increases and bonuses that myself included," Soares said.
Soares adds he believes he's earned the bonus. "I don't think that I am somehow protected from the economic volatilities that I think everyone experiences. I have bills too, and family."
Albany County Executive Dan McCoy said in a statement: “Allegations of inappropriate use of funds need to be investigated by the proper authorities.” Soares says if he had a chance to rewind, he definitely would have gone the local law route. Rizzo say she hopes that everyone can work together to resolve the issue.
