Pay Hikes for Beacon Hill... read it and weep
From my friends at Citizens for Limited Taxation:
AN ESTIMATED $1.24 MILLION IN PAY HIKES PER YEAR FOR LEGISLATORS, GOV. BAKER AND OTHERS
A total of $1.24 million per year is the annual estimated price tag for the salary hikes given last week to the governor, lt. governor, treasurer, secretary of state, attorney general, auditor, 40 senators and 160 representatives.
Here’s how it all went down last week:
Gov. Baker announced that the 200 members of the Legislature will receive a 6.46 percent pay hike for the 2021-2022 legislative session that begins January 6, 2021. The hike will increase the base salary of each senator and representative by $4,280 per year— from the current $66,257 to $70,537. The total cost of the hike for all 200 legislators is $856,000 per year.
Baker is required under the state constitution to determine the amount of a pay raise or cut that state legislators would receive for the 2021-2022 session. All Massachusetts governors are obligated to increase or decrease legislative salaries biennially under the terms of a constitutional amendment approved by the voters in 1998. The amendment, approved by a better than two-to-one margin, requires legislative salaries to be "increased or decreased at the same rate as increases or decreases in the median household income for the commonwealth for the preceding two-year period, as ascertained by the governor.”...
The new $70,537 salary means the 1998 legislative salary of $46,410 has been raised $24,217 or 51.9 percent.
In the meantime, a second pay hike for close to 70 percent of the state’s 200 legislators also takes effect January 6. Currently an estimated 139, or 69.5 percent, of the state's 200 legislators receive a stipend for their service in Democratic or Republican leadership positions, as committee chairs or vice chairs and as the ranking Republican on some committees. All 40 senators and 99 of the 160 representatives receive this bonus pay ranging from $16,245 to $86,640....
And there’s more. The 2017 law also requires that every two years the salaries of the governor and the other five constitutional statewide officers be increased or decreased based on the same data from the BEA. This 4.89 percent bump hikes the governor's salary by $9,797, from $200,355 to $210,152. Add Baker’s $60,000 housing allowance and the total rises to $270,152. Other hikes include the lieutenant governor, auditor and secretary of state by $8,738, from $178,695 to $187,433; and the state treasurer and attorney general by $9,267 from $189,525 to 198,792.
The 4.89 percent hike also applies to the general expense allowance each senator and representative receives. Members whose districts are within a 50-mile radius of the Statehouse currently receive $16,250 per year while members beyond the 50 miles receive $21,660 per year. The $16,250 will increase by $794 to a total of $17,044. The $21,660 will increase by $1,059 to a total of $22,729. The estimated grand total of the hike for the 200 legislators is $172,050.
This allowance is used at the discretion of individual legislators to support a variety of costs including the renting of a district office, contributions to local civic groups and the printing and mailing of newsletters. Legislators are issued a 1099 from the state and are required to report the allowance as income but are not required to submit an accounting of how they spend it.
Beacon Hill Roll Call reached out to dozens of legislators from both parties to comment on the hikes but received no responses.
“Good luck with that!” a senior legislative staff member who spoke on condition of anonymity told Beacon Hill Roll Call. “No one is gonna respond to your request for a comment on the pay raise in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic when some 241,000 Massachusetts residents are unemployed and could only dream of a pay raise.”
Critics of the hikes were quick to respond.
“The voters in their infinite wisdom bought the charade of a constitutional amendment on the 1998 ballot sold by the Legislature as a means to keep them from ever voting themselves another pay raise — after the 55 percent raise they’d just taken,” said Chip Ford, executive director of Citizens for Limited Taxation (CLT) which campaigned against the proposal in 1998. “What they didn’t mention is that they would never need to with the amendment in place. Upon its acceptance the Massachusetts Legislature became the only government body in the world with constitutionally mandated automatic pay hikes. Then, as the first order of business in 2017, they circumvented even that by voting themselves outrageous ‘stipends’ to further feather their nests and abuse their constituents. Voters must educate themselves better if they wish to disabuse themselves of such schemes.”
“This is a great illustration of the divide among us,” said Paul Craney, executive director of the Mass Fiscal Alliance. “Politicians and the professional government class shut down countless businesses while never missing a paycheck, and in this case, giving themselves unjustified pay raises.”
Last night I was contacted by The Boston Globe's token conservative columnist Jeff Jacoby, another good friend, who wanted to pick my mind for information he can use in an upcoming column he is contemplating. Within my response, I noted to him:
Social Security increased by 1.3% for 2021 (1.6% for 2020) but the Medicare deduction from it increased by 30% this year. My actual Social Security monthly check will increase by eight bucks for 2021. My salary has been static for over a decade. Must be nice to be the only legislature in the history of the world with a constitutionally-mandated automatic pay raise!
posted by Jim Pillsbury @ 3:27 PM
14 Comments
14 Comments:
I do not disagree with the fact they deserve more money, but I think to do this in a year where we are being told our money from the state for Covid, school and all those other important items is going to be far less than we hoped, and so many people struggling just to put food on their tables and a roof over their heads, that the legislators should be ashamed of themselves if they take these raises.
A raise while you are working so hard to name a state dinosaur? You have got to be kidding me!
With about 200 legislators, not including stipends, this amounts to a hefty $856,000. Think of how far that would go in feeding the hungry
I work for a very large, successful multinational corporation that has had a decent year in light of what is going on but no one here, not one of the thousands of employees is getting a raise. That includes those at the top. We were told that given the uncertainty of the next year, no raises, and when things turn around and we are a more stable world, we will get raises then that reflect us going without them now. Seems like logical plan to me. But then what has ever been logical about the MA state legislators?
We are hiring a new diversity officer for the city, a person with no experience, just out of college, at about $125,000. How the hell do you justify that salary for someone with no experience doing this work other than an internship in times like these?
The Governor is not taking his raise, but then, he is wealthy already so no skin off his teeth. The legislators work, and if they can justify the increase in these horrific times, then let them do it. But I think the majority of them would be hard pressed to justify the work they do is worthy of a significant raise as most of them don’t even work full time for the people they represent. I hope we all remember this when election time comes up. If these people do not empathize with their constituents and recognize how tough things are for so many then they should not be representing us.
Weeping is not exactly the response I had to this. More like stomping my feet in disbelief
What about local elected? How about the district councilors all donate their stipend to a local food pantry, or even back to the city coffers. And the mayor and her staff should be setting an example and taking a minimum of 5% pay cuts. That would add up to a nice chunk of change.
This is bullshit. The governor and those at the state house are rich already or they would not have the money to win an election. What have they done for us to justify them reaching into our wallets to steal more of our money for themselves?
In the real world you get a raise for doing a good job. The mechanism for our legislators getting a raise has absolutely nothing to do with job performance. How can that be fair?
They rigged the system, just like the State Cops did . You don't have to show up for work to get paid. The legislature has been off for 3 or 4 months this year because of covid.
And much has been left on the table that didn't get done. Some bills have sat for years and years. A few have major impacts like the transportation bill.
Our State, Federal and local government is to big and to costly and continues to show little results.
The legislature voted last night to extend the session, so there is still hope for those bills that have not yet passed so if you are advocating for a particular bill it is not too late to reach out to show your support
honestly, does anyone think we matter to Beacon Hill? It's all about what Ronny says now, just like his predecessor Bob Deleo.
so while Washington DC was under attack, Beacon Hill was working overtime to pass legislation at the 11th hour.
From the Commonwealth Daily Download
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgxwKkRDqKJZQWHtDsqqgNxVJNDWL
The avalanche of bills that came out of the Legislature during the nearly 17-hour session spanning Tuesday and Wednesday was a classic case in which lawmakers would argue that the ends justify the means.
Lawmakers tackled a host of bills, close to 200 by some estimates. Most of them were minor in nature, but some of them were of great importance. The lawmakers won passage of the bills by suspending their own rules constantly and in some cases making up the rules as they went along.
Two conference committee bills – one focused on economic development and the other on transportation bonds – are drawing applause from advocates and stakeholders. But the two bills also showcase what it sometimes takes to push major pieces of legislation across the finish line.
Conference committees are one of the most opaque features of Beacon Hill. The committees are set up to resolve differences between House and Senate bills that can’t be reconciled through the standard legislative process. In these situations, the House appoints three members, two from the majority party and one from the minority party, and the Senate does the same.
The six lawmakers are charged with merging the two bills into one on behalf of the entire 200-person Legislature. The power is immense because once the conference committee releases its compromise bill, it can’t be amended. Lawmakers can only vote yes or no. Do you want to add here that there’s also really little suspense over the yes or no vote and conference committee bills always have the backing of leadership and pass overwhelmingly (or something like that?). Can you think of a conf report that was ever defeated?
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