State Senator Bill Stachowski, who was just barely reelected last year, has been having to answer for some questionable actions lately, namely his giving raises to his staffers despite the state budget crisis.

Despite the budget crisis, during which state leaders are angling to pull more money from taxpayers and perhaps lay off thousands of state workers, the Democrats who captured the state Senate have lavished raises on their staffs.

Take Western New York’s two Democratic senators, for example.

Key aides to Sen. William T. Stachowski of Lake View are collecting raises of 40 to 55 percent, while some aides to Sen. Antoine M. Thompson of Buffalo are seeing raises of 20 percent or better. And a couple of Thompson’s aides have doubled their salaries because they reached full-time status.

Senate Democrats argue that they are merely giving staffers “fair” compensation that had previously been denied by the Republican majority, though minority leader Dean Skelos said Democrats are spending more on salaries than Republicans did.

The scandal did force one of Stachowski’s aides to resign.

The pay raises that Democratic senators doled out to their staffs in recent weeks included a bump for Raymond F. Gallagher, who appeared on State Sen. William T. Stachowski’s payroll even though he holds a full-time job elsewhere.

Gallagher, a longtime political hand, also draws a state pension and serves as executive director of a company that, among other things, serves senior citizens through a county government contract.

Gallagher was serving as Stachowski’s part-time “special assistant.”

Until Thursday. That’s when Gallagher resigned from his state job as The Buffalo News inquired about what he does for Stachowski’s office.

Stachowski claimed Gallagher resigned because he couldn’t handle the extra workload, but that seems to contradict the earlier explanation for the raises.

Not only are Democrats like Stachowski giving their staffers questionable raises, they are also still managing to find millions of dollars for pet projects. Donn Esmonde wrote about this last week:

Not only did legislators not cut their own fat, but Stachowski (stachows@senate.state.ny.us) and Thompson (athompso@senate.state.ny.us)—as a perk of Democrats taking over the Senate—siphoned extra money into staff raises. Stachowski defended the upticks as a reward for extra work. Yet even gradeschoolers know that legislators are near-useless appendages, subservient to the “three men in a room”—the governor, Senate leader Smith and Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver—who hold power.

Stachowski reportedly pays $70,000 to a “scheduler” and another $70,000 to a “communications specialist.” Can’t the guy keep his own schedule, or find somebody to write his news releases for less than 70 grand?

Is this the “positive change” Stachowski was supposed to bring for New York and Upstate in particular?

Of course, as Esmonde noted in his column, this isn’t just about Stachowski alone. It’s the Albany culture that is the problem, and Stachowski, a career politician (now enjoying the spoils of victory with majority party power) will always be a part of the problem, not the solution. Democrats rushed passage of the state budget without adequate debate, and now, no one really knows exactly what is in it.

The people of New York have to put party loyalty aside and start electing people who will represent the people. We need to bring balance to the state government.

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Another Democrat paying his “fair share” of taxes:

Gov. David Paterson’s chief of staff blames depression for failing to file income taxes for five years.

Charles O’Byrne, who earns $178,500, has paid more than $200,000 in back taxes.

The tax debt came to light when New York’s Department of State filed an outstanding warrant against O’Byrne last year.

He says he’s ashamed, but told the New York Post he’s aware that his failure to pay taxes was a consequence of an illness over which he had no control.

UPDATE: Senate GOP calls for an investigation:

The Senate’s Republican majority, fighting to keep its slim, decades-old control, is calling for an investigation into Democratic Gov. David Paterson’s top aide who repaid $200,000 in back taxes and penalties but didn’t include the debt on his ethics disclosure report.

Over the weekend, Paterson Chief of Staff Charles O’Byrne said he has paid the taxes and penalties he owed from 2001 to 2005. During that time, O’Byrne said he was clinically depressed and had informed Paterson, then the Senate Democratic leader, of his debts and medical condition.

In that five years, records show O’Byrne contributed $3,500 to the Democratic National Committee and Sen. John Kerry’s presidential campaign. In New York, he contributed just $5 during that time, but $750 the following year.

The New York Post first reported the story Saturday based on public tax records portraying O’Byrne as a deadbeat whose excuse, according to the front-page headline, was, “HE’S CRAZY.”

On Monday, Senate Republicans seized the issue to fight back against a Democratic governor who, riding high in polls, has sought to get the Legislature to agree to spending cuts to stave off billions of dollars in deficits. In recent weeks, Paterson irked Senate Republican leaders when he endorsed and raised funds for Democrats.

The office of Senate Republican leader Dean Skelos of Long Island said Monday that “serious questions are being raised here.”

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