How much does a town supervisor make

Budgets are tight in the county's big suburbs, and there's mounting public pressure to keep taxes down.

But that isn't stopping several town supervisors from giving themselves modest pay raises next year.

The raises aren't huge -- none even approaches the 24 percent increase Mayor Masiello recently got.

But some of the local officials are starting to inch toward Masiello's old salary of $79,380.

The biggest increase -- 3.5 percent -- will go to Grand Island Supervisor Peter A. McMahon, a Democrat in his first year of elected office. McMahon stands to make $63,011 in his proposed 1999 budget.

Not bad. But it's small change compared with the paycheck Dennis H. Gabryszak, Cheektowaga's top official, will take home next year under his proposed town budget: $72,632, a figure 3 percent higher than his current salary.

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Gabryszak, a Democrat, will be the highest paid town supervisor next year and the only one to break the $70,000 mark.

But others -- Town of Tonawanda Supervisor Carl J. Calabrese and Hamburg Supervisor Patrick H. Hoak -- won't be far behind.

Calabrese, a Republican and the second-highest earner, will make $69,869 in 1999, an increase of 2 percent over this year. In third place, Democrat Hoak stands to earn $69,718 next year, up 3 percent from his current salary.

Gabryszak said the salaries are appropriate, since large towns bring large responsibilities.

"Given the responsibility one has for a town this size, I don't think the salary is out of line," said Gabryszak. "I am a CEO. I'm the chief executive officer and the chief financial officer for the Town of Cheektowaga."

But not all supervisors subscribe to Gabryszak's theory that their salaries should continue climbing.

In Amherst, the area's most populous town, Susan J. Grelick will receive $65,100 as supervisor next year. That puts her earnings in fifth place.

It's the eighth year in a row the salary for Amherst supervisor has been frozen. Breaking the lock on officials' salaries in the town wasn't even considered during budget planning, said Ms. Grelick, a Democrat.

"In hard budget times, people take it negatively when elected officials raise their salaries," she said. "People look for officials who are willing to hold the line on salaries and hold the line on taxes."

But by now, Ms. Grelick's earnings have been surpassed by 10 of her department heads.

She said she doesn't mind -- even though, she pointed out, she could probably be making a lot more in the private sector as an attorney.

"I obviously didn't enter public service to make money," Ms. Grelick said. "That's why they call it public service."

In neighboring Clarence, Republican Supervisor Daniel A. Herberger is freezing his salary of $62,071 as well as the pay of the town's four council members -- a move that saves not only money but potential embarrassment.

That's because salaries for officials in Clarence, a town roughly one-sixth the size of Amherst, are close to those in the much larger community. In Amherst, for example, Town Board members make $20,580 for their part-time work; in Clarence, they earn only $67 less than that per year.

While supervisors in small towns such as Grand Island and Clarence make big-time salaries, elected officials in a few larger towns, such as West Seneca and Lancaster, will make less next year than in several smaller communities.

In Lancaster -- one of the fastest-growing suburbs of the decade -- Supervisor Robert H. Giza, a Democrat, will earn $56,667.

And West Seneca Supervisor Paul T. Clark will earn $52,611, the lowest pay among supervisors of the area's big towns.

"Supervisors' salaries should be in the higher end of the range in general. But I view our whole area as one big exception. I think we owe it to our public to set an example and keep our compensation under control," said Clark, a Democrat, whose paycheck ranks 76th among the 230 full-time employees in West Seneca's town government.

In most cases, the supervisors said, raises for themselves and other elected officials are tied to raises given to union workers and department heads.

There doesn't seem to be any general explanation, however, as to why one town's supervisor earns more than another. It's not based on population. After all, the town with the biggest population, Amherst, does not have the highest-paid supervisor.

Nor is it based on community wealth. Cheektowaga offers the most generous supervisor salary but is not among the wealthier suburbs.

And it's not based on longevity. West Seneca's Clark has been in office much longer than Clarence's Herberger.

Strange salary situations -- like the low figure for West Seneca's supervisor and the comparatively high figure for Clarence's top office -- are common around the state, according to Murray Jaros, a spokesman for the New York State Association of Towns.

Because no state law sets salaries for elected town officials, Jaros said, the figures are all over the ballpark. For that reason, he said, the statewide association makes no effort to track salary figures for supervisors or town boards in the state's 932 towns.

"It is such a variable," Jaros said.

But if state experts have no solid reasons why towns pay the salaries they do, others think there might be one good reason some local leaders are freezing their compensation or at least keeping their raises small:

Ambition for higher office.

In looking to move from Town Hall to a more prominent political job, it doesn't hurt to be seen as a selfless, thrifty leader.

And it doesn't help to be seen as greedy.

"You're better off if you can point to a record that shows you haven't been feeding at the public trough," said Michael Haselswerdt, a professor of political science at Canisius College.

"Anything you can do to suggest that you're fiscally responsible is key," he said. "Voters never look favorably on public officials paying themselves."

It's a lesson some supervisors buy into -- those who may have political ambitions as well as those who clearly don't.

In Amherst, Ms. Grelick said it's "way too early to tell" whether she will ever seek higher office. But holding the line on her salary can't hurt, she said.

"To me, it's more important what you accomplish," she added.

In Cheektowaga, Gabryszak said if he runs for higher office someday, he expects his salary to be used against him.

"Your opponent can always use that against you," he said.

But in West Seneca -- where the lowest-paid supervisor is earning $20,000 less next year than his Cheektowaga counterpart -- Clark said he definitely has no political ambitions beyond Town Hall. When he's done, he said, he will go back to the private sector, in the job he is trained for: accounting.

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