The Independent Citizens Commission approved a 3% raise for Arkansas' constitutional officers Friday, increasing salaries for the state's top political leaders to help offset high inflation.
Despite previous pushback from some elected officials, the state's seven constitutional officers -- governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer, auditor and commissioner of state lands -- will receive raises under the plan. The commission unanimously approved the plan with one member, Frank Guinn, absent from the meeting.
The plan is the end of months of discussion over proposed salary increases for elected officials in the state. The commission settled on pay raises for constitutional officers while deferring a decision for salary increases for members of the General Assembly until the commission's next review in the fall.
The commission indicated its intentions to raise the pay for constitutional officers but not legislators during its May 12 meeting. The plan adopted Friday raises the annual salary of Arkansas' governor from $158,739 to $163,501 and the attorney general from $146,355 to $150,745.
The secretary of state's annual salary will increase from $101,322 to $104,362, while the annual salaries for treasurer, auditor and land commissioner will increase from $95,693 to $98,564 a year. The annual salary for lieutenant governor, which is considered a part-time job, will increase from $46,704 to $48,105. The pay raises will take effect 10 days after they were adopted.
The commission's chair, Annabelle Imber Tuck, said in an interview after Friday's meeting that inflation was reason why the commission voted for the salary increases.
"The 3% [raise] really had to do more with inflation than anything else, in my view," Tuck said.
Pay raises will have to wait for state legislators, Tuck said. In May, the commission decided against including 3% pay increases for members of the General Assembly. Tuck, a former state Supreme Court justice, said the commission lacked enough credible information for how lawmakers were paid in other states.
Instead, the commission may consider salary increases for state legislators at the next review in the fall, Tuck said.
"We didn't have good stats, it was apples and oranges comparing to other states," Tuck said of the proposal for raises for legislators.
The commission had initially proposed 6% salary increases for constitutional officers and state legislators during a meeting in January but received pushback, including from Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who said she would donate any pay raise she receives to charity.
The Independent Citizens Commission, made up of seven members, was created through a constitutional amendment approved by voters in 2014. Two members of the commission are appointed by the governor, senate president pro tempore and speaker of the House while one is appointed by the chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court, serving a maximum of two, four-year terms.
State Rep. David Ray, R-Maumelle, had been critical of the commission's proposal for pay raises for state lawmakers and filed a constitutional amendment to dissolve the commission which, if approved, would return control of salaries for elected officials back to the Legislature. However, Ray's proposed constitutional amendment did not get enough support from fellow lawmakers to be referred to voters.
In November, the commission approved a 2% cost-of-living adjustment and 5% salary increase for state Supreme Court, appellate, circuit, district judges and prosecuting attorneys.