Some state employees reaped thousands of dollars worth of “bonuses” as perks for their work after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a state official testified yesterday.

The head of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation, Robert Ryan, who previously worked as Governor Pataki’s campaign manager, said at an Assembly committee hearing that he increased his six-figure salary and the pay of all 14 of his employees with the bonuses.

The extra compensation wasn’t approved by the authority’s board of directors as required by the agency’s own rules.

But Mr. Ryan said he obtained approval from his chief financial officer to compensate staff working at the World Trade Center site after he saw an employee crying over the traumatic assignment. The bonuses were paid in cash or days off.

“We have evidence of compensation to top management when, as far as I know, firemen and police of the city got no extra bonuses for doing worse, more grotesque work,” Assemblyman Richard Brodsky said after the hearing of the Assembly committee.

The committee is investigating reports of abuse, political hiring, and a lack of oversight at hundreds of state authorities.

The authorities were created by the Legislature to be independent of the governor and politics to run specific services including the state Thruway, New York mass transit, and economic development.

Yet yesterday, Mr. Ryan testified that Mr. Pataki’s office gave him a job running the Roosevelt Island authority after he apparently fell out of favor working at the Empire State Development Corporation.

Mr. Ryan said he received 234 hours of bonus time – worth $13,859 according to a 2003 internal report – of “World Trade Center Appreciation Bonuses.” His base salary at that time was $121,143, according to the report, which Mr. Brodsky released yesterday.

Mr. Ryan offered no apologies for taking the bonuses, which he said he only accepted after his employees insisted.