The panel tasked with setting the salaries of elected officials approved Monday its initial recommendations that calls for more than doubling state lawmaker salaries and significant raises for judges and most constitutional officers.
The Independent Citizens Commission didn't make any changes to the figures it approved at a meeting last week, including raising legislator salaries about 150 percent to $39,400 for most and $45,000 for the House and Senate leaders.
The panel did change the date it will finalize the salaries, during which the figures could still change. That meeting is now set for March 13; a meeting to hear public comment on the proposal remains set for March 2.
The legislative salaries were raised with the understanding that the House and Senate will eliminate an office expense reimbursement that allowed lawmakers to claim up to $14,400 a year.
Board members talked about adding language to the review to make the increase "contingent" on lawmakers following through on a promise to do that, but ultimately didn't include that stipulation. Commissioner Stephen Tipton, though, noted that the change is expected to be in effect before the March 13 meeting. And Commissioner Mitch Berry said the panel can always take back the raises in the future.
"We can go down 15 percent every time we meet … and we can meet anytime we want to," he said. "You could incrementally get it back down over the course of a few months."
The initial proposal also calls for recommending legislators make no changes to per diem and mileage. And it calls for increasing all judicial salaries at least 11.3 percent and raising all constitutional officer pay except for that of the lieutenant governor. Governor would see a more than 60 percent jump from $87,759 to $141,000, and attorney general would jump nearly 78 percent from $73,132 to $130,000.
Commission Chairman Larry Ross closed the meeting Monday thanking the volunteer commission for their work, calling the result a "pragmatic, realistic and sensible start."
"Commissioners, we found a way to be united for a common cause of service," he said.
