ALBANY – Gov. Paterson has worsened his “serious credibility problem” with state workers by giving an aide to his wife a $25,000 raise, a spokesman for the state’s biggest public-employee union said yesterday.
“It’s pretty clear the governor has a pretty serious credibility problem, not just with the public, but with the people who work for him: the employees of the state,” said Civil Service Employees Association spokesman Stephen Madaraz.
He was responding to The Post’s disclosure yesterday that Michele Clarke-Ceres, “chief of staff” to Paterson’s wife, Michelle Paige Paterson, had received a 28.4 percent raise – and a nearly $4,000 bonus – in December, when Paterson was asking 130,000 state workers to give up 3 percent pay hikes because of the state’s fiscal crisis.
A Paterson aide contended that Clarke-Ceres received the raise because she had taken on more responsibilities, the same claim made last week when The Post disclosed that more than a dozen other aides had received pay hikes of up to 46 percent.