There promises to be a lively discussion at the legislature's meeting this Monday about the $175,000 bonuses for Greene County Industrial Development Agency Executive Director Sandy Mathes. This morning Ariel Zangla-Girard in The Daily Freeman has a story about the issue:

Legislator Karen Deyo, R-Catskill, said she planned to include an item on her committee’s agenda to address constituent concerns over the bonuses to... Mathes, and discuss what authority the Legislature has over the agency. “We need to address this recurring problem,” Deyo said. She said she plans to have the county attorney present at Monday’s meeting. Mathes received $175,000 in performance bonuses in 2009, on top of his regular salary of $131,325. The bonuses were made public after state Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, D-Elmsford, made an inquiry into state authority employee bonuses. Paul Slutzky, chairman of the board of directors of the Greene County Industrial Development Agency, has said the bonuses for Mathes were performance-based. He said a compensation committee sets criteria at the beginning of each year for any incentive payments the staff receives. The bonuses come from business fees generated by the agency, according to a previous press release from the agency. Deyo said the issue of Mathes’ bonuses was most recently raised by lawmakers following committee meetings on Aug. 9, and led to a shouting match.

At that meeting, Colin DeVries in The Daily Mail reported that legislator Joseph Izzo, R-Catskill, shouted an expletive at James Van Slyke, D-New Baltimore, about the lack of development in Catskill. At that meeting Deyo wrote a letter to Brodsky, and asked her fellow legislators to sign it, with only Izzo, Chris Pfister, D-Athens, and William Lawrence, R-Cairo, joining in. Read the entire story in The Daily Freeman.