The city’s elections commissioners won approval for a big fat pay raise last year, after swearing they needed extra cash because they’re not reimbursed for board-related expenses.

One problem: It’s not true.

All but one of eight sitting commissioners received thousands of dollars in reimbursements for air fare, luxury hotel accommodations and meals, a Daily News investigation has found.

The commissioners and agency employees appear to routinely get taxpayers to pick up expenses barred by city rules — everything from a “deep tissue” massage to an $800 dinner.

Records show taxpayers often paid for Board of Elections workers-only pizza parties (usually from Grimaldi’s in Brooklyn) and tickets to social events, including an agency official’s attendance at a legislative dinner with her state Senator husband.

Though city rules limit employee attendance at conferences to two a year, commissioners and top agency officials often attended three. Some of these same top officials would sign off on their own expenses.

As a result of the News investigation, the agency last week announced it would tighten its procedures and audit all expenses back to Jan. 1, 2007. Employees will have to pay back any bogus reimbursements. Already one employee has written a $1,500 check.

The claim of non-reimbursement surfaced last year when Board of Elections commissioners went to Albany hat in hand. All are part-timers appointed by Republican and Democratic party leaders.

For years, they were paid $125 a meeting, capped at $12,500 a year. They tried and failed in 2006 to raise it to $300 per meeting with a $30,000 cap; they tried again in 2007.

In legislative documents, one of the key reasons given to justify the pay raise states, “City regulations prohibit reimbursement for tolls, parking and the cost of any conferences they attend.”

Board spokeswoman Valerie Vazquez-Rivera said the board did not write this language. Spokespersons for the bill’s two co-sponsors, Assemblyman Vito Lopez, D-Brooklyn, and Sen. Serphin Maltese, R-Queens, denied writing the language.

Maltese’s chief of staff, Vicki Vattimo, said, “They asked us to sponsor this. To the best of my recollection, they wrote it.”

Whoever wrote it, it worked. The law passed and starting in September 2007 the commissioner’s pay rate more than doubled to the $30,000 cap.

As the bill made its way to approval, most of the commissioners were reimbursed for thousands of dollars in hotel, transportation and meals for attending several conferences at resorts upstate.

Source: NY Daily News