Money talks to Albany Democrats – at least more than ongoing calls to overhaul state bail laws.

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie did not rule out Thursday calling legislators back to Albany in December to approve a legislative pay raise after he and other Democrats deflected calls for months for a special session over rising crime.

“I have not said anything about coming back for a pay raise at this moment,” Heastie told reporters Thursday before emphasizing once more the phrase “at this moment.”

“I believe that legislators need to be compensated for the hard work that they do. People don’t realize the sacrifice that they make being away from their families,” he added.

State law blocks Albany lawmakers from getting salary increases in the same two-year term as when they were approved, which means legislators could not get a pay bump until 2025 unless they acted before the end of 2022.

“Pretty please call me back to debate this. We can’t come back to end cashless bail, but we could be called back to increase legislative pay? I look forward to this debate,” Assemblyman Michael Lawler (R-Rockland), who was elected to Congress in November, tweeted Thursday.

Assemblyman Ed Ra (R-Garden City) suggested a pay raise now would be especially tone deaf so quickly after voters went to the polls.

“I don’t know what they heard on the campaign trail but I heard constantly ‘you guys need to do something about this bail law’ but never had anyone tell us we needed a pay hike,” the Long Island Republican told The Post.

State Senate Minority Leader Robert Ortt – who like other top lawmakers receives a supplemental stipend to his pay – noted in his own statement that New York “is facing an affordability crisis. A crime crisis” while saying it was “patently offensive” that Albany Democrats were discussing an increase in pay.

Multiple Democratic legislators say discussions about a possible pay raise are happening in the state Senate as well.

Representatives of state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Gov. Kathy Hochul, who would have to approve any pay increase, did not provide comment Thursday.

State lawmakers say their pay rise from $80,000 to $110,000 per year at the beginning of 2019 with another increase slated to happen per the recommendations of a controversial commission empowered by the Legislature in 2018 that also banned outside income for lawmakers.

“Some members are cranky about outside income they want their cake and want to eat it too,” a Democratic legislator told The Post Thursday.

Litigation eventually invalidated the limits on moonlighting and the $30,000 that had originally been scheduled to raise legislative pay by 2021 to $130,000 while leaving the increase to $110,000 in place.

New York lawmakers would supplant their counterparts in California, where legislators get $119,702 per year, as the highest paid in the nation, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, if they were to approve an increase to $130,000 in the coming weeks despite the political blowback.

Some state lawmakers have kvetched that inflation and the costs of living in New York City is challenging their ability to make ends meet while working in Albany, especially considering the money they could make in the private sector or elsewhere in government.

New York City Council members currently make $148,500 while repping districts with fewer people without the hassle of schlepping up the Hudson each week during the six-month legislative session that begins in January.

State lawmakers have faced criticism over record-high state spending, rising crime and a litany of scandals, including the resignation of ex-Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin earlier this year over his relationship to a campaign donor while serving in the state Senate.

More money though, might mean fewer problems moving forward, the Democratic legislator suggested.

“You get what you pay for,” the legislator added.