SOCIAL SERVICES: Vote set on Restaino appointment

Local News

March 9, 2010

By Joyce Miles<br><a href="mailto:joyce.miles@lockportjournal.com">E-mail Joyce</a> The Lockport Union-Sun %26 Journal Tue Mar 09, 2010, 10:33 PM EST

Reappointment of Social Services Commissioner Anthony Restaino for another five years is being recommended to the Niagara County Legislature.

Restaino’s first five-year term as commissioner expires April 4.

The Legislature’s administration and community services committees both unanimously backed County Manager Greg Lewis’ recommendation that Restaino be reappointed, although legislators are offering him a different pay package than Lewis suggested.

Restaino’s current salary is $87,696. The committees recommended his pay be raised to $88,573 this year and that he receive 2 percent raises through 2013, and 3 percent raises through 2015, for a top salary of $99,719.

Lewis recommended raising Restaino’s salary to $92,500 immediately, then to $98,000 as of 2011, and keeping it there for the remainder of the commissioner’s term. Restaino’s performance evaluations are “consistently outstanding,” he said.

The pay schedule that the community services committee agreed to instead “was definitely a compromise,” Legislature Chairman William Ross, C-Wheatfield, said Tuesday.

“We are mindful how much responsibility (Restaino) has. He controls $150 million of the county’s $300 million budget and 550-plus employees; he is the gentleman with the most duties and most responsibilities in county government, apart from the county manager ... but we also are mindful of the (financial) burdens facing the county and its taxpayers,” he said.

The question of Restaino’s reappointment will go to the full Legislature next week.

Contact reporter Joyce Miles at 439-9222, ext. 6245.

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