The head of the state’s cannabis regulating board said Thursday she will not leave her post after Gov. Kathy Hochul made the decision to eliminate her $229,000 annual salary in the budget.

Cannabis Control Board chair Tremaine Wright exclusively told Spectrum News 1 she knew her salary was under negotiation.

“I didn’t take this job because there was a salary,” Wright said Thursday after speaking at a Women in Weed luncheon in Albany. “I took this job before they even determined what the salary would be.”

Slashing Wright’s salary was quietly slipped into the over $254 billion spending plan. She will instead receive the $260 stipend other board members get on days they attend meetings or events.

The governor appointed Wright, a former Brooklyn assemblymember, to the board in 2021.

The chair plans to continue serving in her role.

“I’m committed to moving forward with good policy,” she said.

Wright added the board and governor’s office are on good terms, and her salary wasn’t eliminated because of a souring relationship.

“This is a changing landscape,” she said. “The same way our licensees and our applicants have had to pivot in real time and they’ve had to respond to demands and changes along the way, the board is as well.”

Most chair positions in state government are unpaid, including for the Gaming Commission, state Insurance Fund, Empire State Development, the state Council on the Arts, the Dormitory Authority of New York, the state Thruway Authority, the State Univerity of New York Board of Trustees and several others.

“Chairing a state board is generally a voluntary, unpaid position for individuals interested in pursuing public service, and the enacted budget will align the CCB’s governance structure with other state boards,” Hochul spokesperson Kassie White said in a statement. “We are continuing our efforts to streamline cannabis governance and build the nation’s strongest and fairest legal cannabis market.”

Hochul’s office did not respond to a question about if the $229,000 will remain in the Office of Cannabis Management.

OCM acting and deputy Executive Director Felicia A.B. Reid agrees it’s important for the Cannabis Control Board to be on par with other boards in government that don’t typically pay members for their service.

“It’s not so much about, you know, salary and who’s making what and who’s doing what, but what are we doing, actually, to make this industry work?” she said after Thursday’s panel.

Reid said she and Wright have a strong relationship, and she’s happy to continue working with her.

“The work that she’s done over the last three years has been critical to the development of this industry,” Reid said. “…We’re thankful for that. Always, she will have a seat at the table.”

Reid and Wright both spoke at Thursday’s event to support women who work or own a business in the field.

“We have this industry — how do we make sure that it survives and what can we create amongst ourselves to be able to help that survival?” Reid said.

The budget commits $5 million to OCM to hire 29 more enforcement staff. The department has 235 workers, and is aiming to be fully staffed at 274 people.

“I know when I started it was around 170, so that’s an incredible growth in the last, almost, not quite, a year,” Reid said.

Gov. Hochul initially proposed making the odor of cannabis a probable cause for police to support a court-ordered blood test — altering a key component of the 2021 law that legalized recreational marijuana.

That proposal was soundly rejected by the Legislature and the Office of Cannabis Management and was removed from the the final budget.