Kiryas Joel Administrator Earns $216K To Run Hasidic Village Of 23,000

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By Josh Nathan-Kazis September 25, 2017

The administrator of the New York village of Kiryas Joel, home to members of the Satmar Hasidic group, reportedly earns $216,000 a year — more than all but three other government employees in a three-county area in suburban New York.

The village, with a population of 23,000, has ten employees who earn over $100,000 per year, which the Times Herald-Record, a local newspaper, reports is “far more than any other municipality in the region.”

The village administrator’s assistant earns $152,000 per year.

The administrator, Gedalye Szegedin, told the Herald-Record that village staff works 10 to 12 hours per day, six days per week, and that village taxes have not gone up in 11 years.

Kiryas Joel is the home of Satmar Grand Rabbi Aron Teitelbaum and thousands of his followers.

Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at [email protected] or on Twitter, @joshnathankazis.

Josh Nathan-Kazis is a staff writer for the Forward. He covers charities and politics, and writes investigations and longform.

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