Mayor Bloomberg found money in the city budget to give out raises to 48 members of his City Hall staff

Despite a gaping budget hole that could lead to layoffs of teachers or police officers, Mayor Bloomberg found money in the city budget to give out raises to 48 members of his City Hall staff.

A Daily News review of payroll data found that 10 of those lucky employees got raises that topped 20% since last summer.

“It is hypocritical,” steamed City Councilwoman Letitia James (D-Brooklyn). “It’s just disrespectful to the people who basically make the city run.”

But Bloomberg spokesman Marc LaVorgna said the mayor’s office was paying some employees more because they were performing more work as a result of staffing cuts.

He said the office shrank by 17 workers, going from 484 employees in June 2011 to 467 in June 2012.

“Fewer people on staff means some employees have been promoted or taken on more work, so their salaries increased, but we’ve pushed our overall salary costs down,” he said.

The office’s total salary cost of $36 million was down by about $1.4 million over the same time period, LaVorgna said. He noted headcount has dropped 12% since 2008, when there were 531 staffers.

LaVorgna added that almost all of the 48 staffers who got raises were promoted, even though their civil service titles didn’t change in the payroll data.

City Councilwoman Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan) questioned why the extra money was needed.

“It’s not a job where you have to find somebody with a very technical skill and pay them a lot of money,” she said.

Gregory Floyd, head of Teamsters Local 237, which represents 20,000 city workers, was angry about the raises.

“I thought there was no money for raises for any city employee, and the last I checked the people who worked in the mayor’s office were city employees,” he said. “They’re being paid with taxpayer money.”

Harry Nespoli, who heads the sanitation workers union, said every union is working without a contract and being told to inform its members to work harder without any rises.

“He had enough money to give raises to the people in City Hall, but not the people that work for the citizens of New York City on a day-to-day basis?” he questioned. “That is totally unacceptable.”

LaVorgna shot back that 76,000 union members received salary increases from June 2011 to June 2012. There are 240,000 unionized employees in the city workforce.

tmoore@ nydailynews.com

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