New York’s lawmakers and elected officials may not be happy with Con Edison’s CEO Timothy Cawley’s seven-figure salary and millions more in stock awards, but its shareholders don’t seem to mind.
Last week, Con Edison shareholders approved a compensation package for Cawley that, with stock incentives, comes in at around $14 million.
Cawley’s salary is $1.4 million, while much of the remainder comes from stock awards paid for by shareholders, Con Edison’s financial statements say. Salary for other top Con Edison executives totaled nearly $3 million and $14 million in other incentives.
The package was approved by 90% of Con Edison shareholders at their annual meeting Monday, May 18. That was slightly less than the 92% margin that approved executive compensation last year.
Among the no votes was New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, who represents the state’s Common Retirement Fund, one of the nation’s largest with over one million retirees and beneficiaries. The fund held Con Edison shares valued at $34.6 million at the end of March.
“Con Edison wants shareholders to rubberstamp a poorly designed and bloated executive pay plan,” DiNapoli said. “With New Yorkers facing an affordability crisis driven in part by rising energy costs, the case for tighter pay practices at a regulated utility is clear.”
Cawley’s compensation is 96 times what the company’s median employee makes, the comptroller notes.
High salaries amid NY energy affordability crisis
DiNapoli, who’s facing a reelection this year, has made a stand against Con Edison’s executive payouts in past years as well as pay at other utilities, among them the American Electric Power Company, Dominion Energy, Southern Company, NextEra Energy, and PG&E.
But this year, Con Edison has been in the crosshairs as rising gas and electric rates left ratepayers on edge and state officials looking for solutions to what they’re calling an energy affordability crisis.
In January, the state Public Service Commission approved double-digit rate hikes for Con Edison’s 5 million gas and electric customers in Westchester County and New York City. Electric customers will pay on average 10% more over three years and gas customers 16% more.
State lawmakers accused the PSC of putting Con Edison investors ahead of ratepayers, placing additional strain on low-income earners forced to choose between buying groceries and paying their utility bills. “In some cases, even when they choose to keep the lights off, they are still hit with tremendous bills,” Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins said at the time. “How is that fair?”
Over 1.1 million households were behind at least 60 days on gas and electric bills at the end of the year, with debts approaching $2 billion.
And some 400,000 customers had their gas or electric service shut off in 2025 for not paying their bills. An AARP survey conducted in February found customers cutting back on basics like groceries and transportation.
State lawmakers are weighing reform measures backed by the AARP and the Public Utilities Law Project, a consumer advocacy group. Among them are taxpayer rebates which, under one Democrat proposal, would include a $500 check for households with incomes under $150,000.
NY officials blast utility company profits
State Sen. Shelley Mayer, a Westchester Democrat, is backing a measure that would prevent utilities from recouping profits above their PSC-approved return on equity.
A January report by the AARP found that private utilities spent nearly $32 million arguing for rate increases and stuck ratepayers with the bill, a practice Jenkins called “a blatant cash grab.”
Con Edison defends the executive payouts, saying much of the tab is picked up by shareholders.
“Executive compensation is designed to attract and retain the leadership required to operate one of the most complex energy systems in the world, drive Con Edison’s nation-leading reliability and deliver on New York’s clean energy goals,” Con Edison spokesman Allan Drury said. “The majority of executive compensation is performance based and paid by shareholders. It is tied to metrics that matter, including safety, system reliability, and customer experience. Our compensation is aligned with the median of our peer utilities and consistent with industry benchmarks over many years.”
Some 2.4 million current and former city employees ― among them teachers, police and fire department personnel ― benefit from state and city pension funds.
One of DiNapoli’s Democratic challengers, Drew Warshaw, suggested the comptroller’s complaints about executive pay don’t go far enough.
“DiNapoli’s limited vision of this office is on full display,” Warshaw said. “Of course he should vote against this obscene executive pay package. But why would he stop there? I would crack down on ConEd’s guaranteed profit margin that the very state regulator who DiNapoli oversees continues to approve in rate case after rate case. If you cut Con Ed’s profits, you’d cut executive pay, and you’d cut electricity prices. That’s what we should be doing.”
Raj Goyle, another Democrat challenger, did not respond to a request for a comment.
Thomas C. Zambito covers energy, transportation and economic growth for the USA TODAY Network’s New York State team. He’s won dozens of state and national writing awards from the Associated Press, Investigative Reporters and Editors, the Deadline Club and others during a decades-long career that’s included stops at the New York Daily News, The Star-Ledger of Newark and The Record of Hackensack. He can be reached at tzambito@lohud.com
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: DiNapoli blasts Con Ed’s sky-high executive pay amid NY energy crisis
Reporting by Thomas C. Zambito, New York State Team / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
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