Mayor Eric Adams paying top advisers nearly as much as he's getting

Publish date: 2024-07-08

Explore More

The inner circle is the golden circle at City Hall.

Longtime aides and allies brought into his administration by Mayor Eric Adams are drawing salaries that are nearly the size of Hizzoner’s own $259,000 a year paycheck, according to public records filed in recent weeks.

The salary information provides new insight into the hierarchy of the Adams administration, where many appointments still have not been formally announced and where City Hall spokesmen have refused to answer questions about pay for weeks.

At the top of the pyramid, making $252,000 annually are Chief Advisor Ingrid Lewis-Martin, Adams’ longtime right-hand from his days as Brooklyn borough president, and Frank Carone, his chief of staff and the former longtime power broker of the Brooklyn Democratic Party.

Frank Carone is Mayor Eric Adam’s chief of staff and ranks in nearly $252,000 a year. Mario Belluomo
Deputy Brooklyn Borough President Chaplain Ingrid P. Lewis-Martin also makes $252,000 annually. Getty Images for Housing Works
Philip Banks (right) is highly paid along with Mayor Adams top colleagues. AP

That’s also the same rate of pay awarded to at least two of Adams’ deputy mayors, including Philip Banks, another longtime Adams friend who oversees public safety and has been dogged by questions about potential double-dipping with his previously awarded city pension.

City Hall Press Secretary Fabien Levy said late Tuesday that Banks is still not receiving his city salary due to regulations that require he receive permission from state officials to collect his pension and a paycheck simultaneously.

That top pay band is identical to what Mayor Bill de Blasio paid his deputy mayors and chief of staff, records show.

The pay records — first noted by Politico New York — also revealed that Fernando Cabrera, Adams’ controversial pick to serve as a ‘senior advisor’ to the newly created office Mayor’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Partnerships, will make $228,000.

Cabrera infamously traveled to Uganda in 2014 and complemented the country’s “Godly” leadership after it approved a controversial law that barred the “promotion” of homosexuality and allowed for the execution of LGBT individuals.

Fernando Cabrera serves as a senior advisor to the Mayor’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Partnerships. Councilman Fernando Carbrera

That made his appointment to a city agency a no-go from a public relations standpoint and weeks later Adams hired him on as an adviser.

He’s getting a larger salary in the adviser role than Adams’ press secretary, Levy, who makes $200,000 annually; the $201,000 made by top advisor, Menashe Shapiro; or the $211,000 made by head of communications Maxwell Young.

“Fernando’s salary is within the salary band of other senior advisors in the administration,” said Levy.

Banks, meanwhile, was once the NYPD’s Chief of Department — the top uniformed position on the force — and considered a likely candidate to be commissioner.

Then, he unexpectedly resigned in 2014 as he became a key figure in a sprawling police corruption case that eventually traced its path all the way into the administration of then-Mayor de Blasio.

ncG1vNJzZmimqaW8tMCNnKamZ2Jlf3N7j2xmaXBfoq66u9FmnKuhk2Kupa3MrGSpmameu6h506inZpmUq7a0sdGsZKedkae5unnArGSmrZOdeqK%2FjKGcrGWXmsG1tc2gZg%3D%3D