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CLT UPDATE
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Waking Up to a Constitutional
Violation
|
The top two Massachusetts legislative leaders
would become the highest paid in the country, and the governor would
become the second-highest paid nationally, if recommendations
released Monday by a state panel become law.
The advisory commission recommended the
governor’s salary be boosted from $151,800 to $185,000; the House
speaker’s and Senate president’s jump from $102,279 to $175,000; and
the attorney general’s increase from $130,582 to $175,000.
The proposals on pay, which were coupled with
recommended reforms in the panel’s final report, come as the state
faces a budget gap and as polling data has found Massachusetts
voters uneasy about their own economic prospects.
In addition to the salary increase, the
commission also proposed an additional $65,000-a-year housing
allowance for the governor.
If the pay raises were adopted, the Massachusetts
governor would trail only the governor of Pennsylvania, who makes
$187,818; the House speaker and Senate president salaries would rank
first among the 50 states, according to the report....
While the panel proposed pay raises for the top
legislative leaders, it did not directly recommend an increase in
the base salaries of rank-and-file legislators.
By constitutional amendment, those salaries are
adjusted every two years based on changes to median household income
for the state, as determined by the governor. But the commission did
propose the using data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis for
those biennial adjustments....
Fiscal watchdogs decried the proposals.
“I have a problem with any pay hike when we’re in
the midst of a fiscal crisis and they’re cutting local aid,” said
Barbara Anderson, president of Citizens for Limited Taxation,
a Massachusetts-based antitax group.
The Boston Globe
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Commission backs big raises at top
Massachusetts' top lawmakers remained
non-committal on Monday on recommendations that would boost pay for
legislators and constitutional officers, as an anti-tax activist
threatened to sue the state if changes to legislative pay pass....
Meanwhile, Barbara Anderson, executive
director of Citizens for Limited Taxation, threatened to take
the state government to court if the legislature implements the
committee's recommendations to change the pay of rank-and-file
legislators.
A 1998 constitutional amendment establishes that
legislative salaries are set every two years to increase or decrease
at the same rate as the state's median household income, as
determined by the governor....
Anderson, however, said the legislature
cannot change the way it calculates legislative base pay. "It's as
obviously simple as the constitutional amendment language, which is
as simple as language gets," Anderson said.
She said legislative pay cannot be calculated
based on anything but median household income, and Citizens for
Limited Taxation will sue the state if the legislature does
anything else. "They can't play with it, they can't amend it,"
Anderson said. "It's the Constitution."
The Springfield Republican
Monday, December 1, 2014
Top lawmakers mum on proposed pay hike
as anti-tax activist threatens lawsuit
Massachusetts’ political leaders have ascended to
new heights of hubris and cluelessness, an astounding accomplishment
even for them....
The better pay and perks are necessary, according
to the commission, because Massachusetts can’t attract good
candidates for governor without them. That’s why there were 10
candidates on the ballot this year.
We’re just getting started....
The sad part is no one is really very surprised
by this shady proposal. It’s actually the second time a special
“compensation commission” released a plan at the end of a lame-duck
session to give elected officials a big pay raise. The first time
was in 2008 when the panel included Steve Crosby, dean at UMass
Boston’s McCormack Graduate School. Crosby is now doing a bang-up
job running the state Gaming Commission.
This time the pay raise plan was put together by
Ira Jackson, who is the current dean at the McCormack Graduate
School.
So here’s the lesson for Massachusetts taxpayers.
Next time a UMass Boston dean gets appointed to a special
commission, grab your wallets and flee to New Hampshire.
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Pols recommend big pay hikes for ... pols
By Joe Battenfeld
As far as we know the only people crying out for
“fixing” the compensation structure for public officials in
Massachusetts are the public officials themselves. But kudos to the
folks on Beacon Hill for making it appear we have a crisis on our
hands.
With all due respect to members of the Special
Advisory Commission on Public Officials’ Compensation, their final
recommendations, released yesterday, were guaranteed from the word
“go.” The lawmakers who created this panel never would have done so
had they believed it would lead to anything but a push for more
pay....
Panel chairman Ira Jackson acknowledged that pay
raises are controversial and notes the “fiscal environment and the
prevailing cynicism.” Were the Legislature to act on all of the
recommendations in this report in a lame-duck session that cynicism
would be entirely justified.
A Boston Herald editorial
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
No ‘emergency’ here
‘The louder he talked of his honor,” wrote Ralph
Waldo Emerson in 1860, “the faster we counted our spoons.” As a
resident of Massachusetts, Emerson knew better than to take at face
value anything public officials say about their own rectitude. That
was a prudent attitude a century and a half ago. It’s just as
prudent now.
So when Beacon Hill created a high-powered
“advisory commission” to evaluate the salaries paid to top elected
officers and lawmakers, only a naif could have doubted it would come
back with anything but a recommendation for hefty pay raises all
around. Huge increases in what are already among the highest
salaries paid to legislative leaders and statewide officials in
America, concluded the commission in a report released Monday, is
the best way to attract “publicly spirited and honest individuals”
to state government.
Quick, count the spoons....
News stories have focused on the commission’s
call for hiking the governor’s total compensation by nearly $100,000
a year, and boosting the six-figure salary of the House speaker and
Senate president by more than 70 percent. Since Governor-elect
Charlie Baker says he would “probably veto” any such legislation,
the Legislature may try to grease the skids and get the pay hikes
passed before Baker takes office in January.
But the biggest affront in this plan is the
commission’s unlawful scheme to engineer a raise for rank-and-file
legislators.
In the long-running saga of Beacon Hill pay
raises, underhanded maneuvering has been the norm. Late at night on
Halloween in 1979, lawmakers rammed through a bill hiking their pay
with no public hearing or advance notice. Three years later the
Legislature returned to the trough, attaching a 50 percent raise for
its members to a judicial pay measure, which couldn’t be blocked by
referendum. In 1987, another ploy: A sizable (and retroactive)
legislative salary increase was passed with an “emergency preamble,”
which made it effective immediately — and immune to repeal until it
was nearly two years old. In 1994, Governor William Weld colluded
with legislative leaders to pass a bill enlarging the salaries of
House and Senate members by a stunning 55 percent....
Time and again, Beacon Hill politicos have
justified such avarice by lamenting that they had no better option.
But then they devised one: They would put a
cost-of-living adjustment for legislative salaries right into the
state constitution, and forswear forever the right to vote on
their own pay. In 1988, voters were invited to approve a
constitutional amendment that would, once and for all, put the issue
to rest. “A Yes vote would prohibit state legislators from changing
their base pay,” explained the official voter guide, “and instead
would adjust that pay according to changes in median household
income.”
The amendment passed handily. Lawmakers looked
forward complacently to receiving automatic biennial raises as a
constitutional right, forever. And sure enough, their salaries went
up by a few percentage points every two years, in keeping with the
amendment’s explicit formula adjusting legislative pay in tandem
with median household income.
Until median household income stopped going up in
the wake of the Great Recession....
The amendment drafted by the Legislature — and
approved by the voters in a landslide — made “median income” the
touchstone. It forbids lawmakers from voting for anything else.
Beacon Hill, for once, has been hoist with its own petard.
Assuming, that is, that in Massachusetts, the
constitution rules. Does it?
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Mass. lawmakers’ unlawful scheme to hike pay
By Jeff Jacoby
We think rather highly of ourselves here in
Massachusetts and that tendency is on full display in the report of
the “Special Advisory Commission on Public Officials’ Compensation”
that was released on Monday.
The panel was Oprah-esque in its recommendations
(“You get a raise! And you get a raise!”). Most of the
attention was focused on a proposed housing allowance for the
governor and the elimination of “per diem” payments for lawmakers.
But there was so much more to the story....
Then there’s the “per diem” issue.
Lawmakers are eligible to collect the stipends
for every day they report to the State House for official business,
with rates varying depending on how far their district is from
Beacon Hill. The commission accurately describes the payments as
“controversial” and in its press release, places their elimination
first on its list of recommended reforms.
But look closely and you’ll find that the
$300,000 savings from eliminating per diems is swamped by the
$805,000 cost of a corresponding increase in office expenses
allotted to each legislator — for a net increase in
legislative expenses of $505,000....
In Massachusetts we take great pride in calling
ourselves No. 1 in the nation in student achievement. Soon we may
get to boast that we’re No. 1 in what we pay people who make the
choice to run for office — some of whom have no intention of
ever looking for employment elsewhere. Is that progress?
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
A race to the top not worth winning
Panel’s plan would see Beacon Hill salaries skyrocket
By Julie Mehegan
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Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
What a week it's been
trying to publicize that The Special Advisory Commission Regarding
the Compensation of Public Officials is proposing to violate the
state Constitution in its Report to the Public, Legislature, and
Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. [To download/read the
entire report
CLICK HERE.] It's been a struggle to overcoming the resistance and ignorance,
casting a light on the history of legislative pay raises and what
the 1998 amendment to the state Constitution actually prescribes,
getting so many to actually read it in its clarity:
The
Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Articles of Amendment
Art. CXVIII [Art. 118]. The base compensation as of
January first, nineteen hundred and ninety-six, of
members of the general court shall not be changed except
as provided in this article. As of the first Wednesday
in January of the year two thousand and one and every
second year thereafter, such base compensation shall 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.
Until the last day or two, most of those who didn't think we
were correct thought we were outright crazy —
but they're beginning to come around. I would imagine by now more
have actually read the amendment.
For our original alarm read: CLT Update,
Thursday, Nov. 20:
"Despite
the state Constitution, pols are back for another pay hike"
The commission hasn't directly called for
a legislative pay raise. What it's done is more insidious and
nefarious. It has recommended that the formula specified in
the state Constitution simply be ignored, arbitrarily replaced by one more
favorable to perpetual automatic legislative pay raises.
Instead of legislative salaries being based on
"the median household income for the commonwealth for the preceding
two year period," the commission "specifically recommends that
future administrations use BEA quarterly data measuring the change
in wages and salaries in Massachusetts for the most recent eight
quarters to determine the biennial change in legislative salaries."
As you can see in the excerpted chart below
(APPENDIX D: LEGISLATIVE COMPENSATION BASE PAY FOR LEGISLATORS),
legislators' salaries only increase under the commission's proposed
Constitutional end-run — despite how
well or poorly their constituents are and have been faring.
|
Table
D-1
Comparison of Actual Pay Changes and Changes Using BEA
Method |
|
Session |
Actual
Pay and
Percentage Change |
BEA, 8
Most Recent
Quarters and
Percentage Change |
|
2007 (base year) |
$58,197 |
$58,197 |
|
2009-10 session |
$61,440
(+5.6%) |
$62,206
(+6.9%) |
|
2011-12 session |
$61,133
(-0.5%) |
$62,585
(+0.6%) |
|
2013-14 session |
$60,032
(-1.8%) |
$66,410
(+6.1%) |
2015-16 session
projected |
N/A |
$63,994
(+6.6% based on 2013-
14 actual pay) |
|
Note: Calculations for
BEA are based on the data that was available at the time
of calculation. |
Here's some further information that should be of
interest in this controversy:
If this latest pay grab is going to happen it'll
have to be rushed through by year's end. The Legislature is
currently in "informal session" so it could be adopted by a mere
handful of legislators in the blink of an eye with a voice vote. The good news
is, it can also be defeated by the objection of one legislator.
Rep. Geoff Diehl (R-Whitman) has vowed to remain planted in the
House chamber to be that one objection for as long as it takes. We
hope he's getting the assistance of other legislators
— at least to spell him long enough for
a bathroom break now and then. So far, we haven't heard that
he has any allies even among other Republicans. What's with
that?
The only other way it can pass in the coming
month is if the House and Senate end informal sessions and call in a
formal session of both branches. Formal sessions in a
post-election year following the election are rare if ever, usually
reserved for exigent emergencies; threats to the very Commonwealth
itself. This is certainly not such a situation
— as least most people wouldn't consider it
such.
But then we're not Bacon
Hill pols, and we don't have our hands in everyone else's pockets.
|
 |
 |
|
Chip Ford |
|
|
|
|
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The Boston Globe
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Commission backs big raises at top
By Joshua Miller
The top two Massachusetts legislative leaders would become the
highest paid in the country, and the governor would become the
second-highest paid nationally, if recommendations released Monday
by a state panel become law.
The advisory commission recommended the governor’s salary be boosted
from $151,800 to $185,000; the House speaker’s and Senate
president’s jump from $102,279 to $175,000; and the attorney
general’s increase from $130,582 to $175,000.
The proposals on pay, which were coupled with recommended reforms in
the panel’s final report, come as the state faces a budget gap and
as polling data has found Massachusetts voters uneasy about their
own economic prospects.
In addition to the salary increase, the commission also proposed an
additional $65,000-a-year housing allowance for the governor.
If the pay raises were adopted, the Massachusetts governor would
trail only the governor of Pennsylvania, who makes $187,818; the
House speaker and Senate president salaries would rank first among
the 50 states, according to the report.
In a statement, Governor Deval Patrick said he supported the
recommendations but said he would not approve salary-boosting
legislation until the midyear budget gap, estimated to be $329
million, is bridged. Among other measures, Patrick has proposed cuts
in aid to cities and towns, which legislators quickly rejected.
Governor-elect Charlie Baker poured cold water on the idea of salary
increases with an unresolved state budget shortfall looming.
“Now is not the time to be talking about pay increases on Beacon
Hill,” he said at news conference after the report was released.
If the economic situation remained similar to what it is today and
Baker received legislation raising top officials’ pay, he said he
“would probably veto it.” He takes office Jan. 8.
The panel pegged the yearly net cost of the proposed changes,
including the salary hikes, at about $934,000, a tiny part of the
state’s more than $36 billion budget. Members of the panel said they
expected the increases could be absorbed within existing budgets,
without additional taxpayer expense.
Ira A. Jackson, chairman of the commission, defended the recommended
salaries and said they were based on a thorough review of top
elected officials’ responsibilities, other states’ levels of
compensation, the high cost of living in Massachusetts, how much top
executives in the private sector make, and a desire to attract
talented people, regardless of means, to elected office.
“We conclude that the governor of Massachusetts is inadequately
compensated,” he said, noting the 24/7 nature of the job and, among
other factors, that more than 1,200 state employees earn more than
the governor.
Still, Jackson, dean of the John W. McCormack Graduate School of
Policy and Global Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston,
acknowledged that proposals for boosting public sector compensation
are controversial and usually unpopular.
“Our democracy and form of self-government here in the Commonwealth
will be strengthened if our reforms and recommendations are
enacted,” he said at a news conference, announcing the commission’s
final report.
Asked about the proposed gubernatorial housing allowance, Jackson
said Massachusetts is one of only a few states that do not have an
executive mansion or offer a housing allowance to the governor.
Michael J. Widmer, the outgoing head of the non-partisan
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation and one of the commission
members, said in an e-mail the panel wanted to clearly distinguish
the allowance from the salary, so did not lump the two items
together. He said the group did not discuss any potential tax
consequences of the housing allowance.
While the panel proposed pay raises for the top legislative leaders,
it did not directly recommend an increase in the base salaries of
rank-and-file legislators.
By constitutional amendment, those salaries are adjusted every two
years based on changes to median household income for the state, as
determined by the governor. But the commission did propose the using
data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis for those biennial
adjustments.
The panel also recommended boosting pay for other statewide elected
constitutional officials, according to its final report:
■ treasurer, from $127,917 to $175,000;
■ secretary of state, from $130,916 to $165,000;
■ auditor, from $134,952 to $165,000;
■ lieutenant governor, from $134,932 to $165,000.
Among the reforms the panel proposed were to
prohibit constitutional officers, the House speaker, and the Senate
president from earning outside income, other than passive income
from investments.
It also recommended boosting the office expense allowance for state
legislators — more for those farther outside of Boston — while
eliminating per diem reimbursements.
Legislators collect per diem payments for commuting to and from the
State House from their home districts.
Aides to the Senate president and the speaker of the House did not
respond to questions about if or when the Legislature might take up
pay-raise legislation.
Timing could matter.
If the lame duck Legislature and Patrick do not act to boost
compensation before the new legislative session begins early next
month, it might be years before pay raises could go into effect.
The state’s conflict-of-interest law says public employees may not
participate, as such, in matters that affect their own financial
interest.
That could mean some of the recommendations would need to be passed
during the lame duck session in order to take effect in January when
new officials are sworn in.
“If our recommendations are to become law, they must be acted upon
in this legislative session to be effective for the new governor,
and other constitutional officers and the 200 . . . members of the
Legislature,” Jackson said.
After passing a budget and other high-profile bills over the summer,
the Legislature concluded formal business for the year. Still, it
has met and advanced legislation in informal sessions. But in those
sessions, a single legislator can derail proceedings.
The Legislature could call a full formal session however, which
might allow it to push a pay-raise bill through.
In a statement, Speaker Robert A. DeLeo offered no guidance on where
he stood on the panel’s proposals. “The report will now be
reviewed,” he said.
State Senator Stanley C. Rosenberg, expected to be elected Senate
president next month, called the commission’s conclusions “bold
recommendations.”
Fiscal watchdogs decried the proposals.
“I have a problem with any pay hike when we’re in the midst of a
fiscal crisis and they’re cutting local aid,” said Barbara
Anderson, president of Citizens for Limited Taxation, a
Massachusetts-based antitax group.
Paul Craney, executive director of the Massachusetts Fiscal
Alliance, said, “Now is not the time to enrich elected officials and
people who would benefit from this plan.”
The Springfield Republican
Monday, December 1, 2014
Top lawmakers mum on proposed pay hike as anti-tax activist
threatens lawsuit
By Shira Schoenberg
Massachusetts' top lawmakers remained non-committal on Monday on
recommendations that would boost pay for legislators and
constitutional officers, as an anti-tax activist threatened to sue
the state if changes to legislative pay pass.
House Speaker Robert DeLeo, a Winthrop Democrat, outgoing Senate
President Therese Murray, a Plymouth Democrat, and incoming Senate
President Stanley Rosenberg, an Amherst Democrat, all declined to
take positions on a report by a legislative advisory commission that
would increase the pay for their jobs.
The House speaker and Senate president currently earn $102,279. An
advisory commission created to review public compensation released a
report Monday that recommended increasing their salaries to
$175,000. The report also proposed increasing the salaries of the
governor and other elected officials.
Committee Chairman Ira Jackson, dean of the John W. McCormack
Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at the University of
Massachusetts Boston, said the House speaker and Senate president
lead "a co-equal branch of government," but get paid less than the
leaders of the executive and judiciary branches. The proposal is
politically controversial, coming at a time when the state is making
budget cuts.
Murray, who did not run for reelection, thanked the commission for
"thoughtful and comprehensive recommendations which we are currently
reviewing to determine how they could be practically implemented and
what the next steps may be."
Murray said in a statement, "I believe that the governor,
legislative leadership and constitutional officers should receive
the compensation which would be commensurate with the full time
positions they hold." But she stopped short of endorsing the
commission's specific recommendations.
Rosenberg, an Amherst Democrat, is expected to replace Murray as
Senate president in January. Rosenberg too declined to give an
opinion. "After engaging in a transparent and thorough process the
Commission has issued a series of bold recommendations, including
the elimination of per-diems and the institution of a
first-in-the-nation ban on outside income for legislative leaders
and constitutional officers," Rosenberg said in a statement. "I look
forward to reviewing the Commission's report, as well as the data
used to support their recommendations."
DeLeo, in a statement, thanked the commission and said only that the
House clerk received the report, and it will now be reviewed.
For the new salaries to go into effect next year, they must be
approved this year. However, currently, the legislature is meeting
only in informal sessions, which means it can only approve bills
that face no opposition. Passing a salary increase would likely
require a return to formal sessions before January. If lawmakers
wait until January, the raises cannot take effect for two years, due
to conflict of interest laws that prevent lawmakers from voting on
something in which they have a financial interest. The bill could
also face a veto from incoming Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, who
said he opposes the raises. Outgoing Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick
supports the raises, as long as the legislature first fills a budget
gap.
Meanwhile, Barbara Anderson, executive director of
Citizens for Limited Taxation, threatened to take the state
government to court if the legislature implements the committee's
recommendations to change the pay of rank-and-file legislators.
A 1998 constitutional amendment establishes that legislative
salaries are set every two years to increase or decrease at the same
rate as the state's median household income, as determined by the
governor.
Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation
and a member of the compensation advisory committee, said the
problem with that method is median income information is only
available a year later. So the governor has to estimate that
information. "We put a specific proposal in place that ties the
change to currently available data," Widmer said.
The commission's proposal would use data from the Bureau of Economic
Analysis to measure the quarterly change in salaries and wages in
Massachusetts for the most recent eight quarters. That data has a
time lag of three months, not a year, and there would be no
estimating involved. The data measures aggregate, not median,
income.
State legislators get a base salary of around $60,000, with
additional payment for those in leadership positions. Using the
method proposed by the report, lawmakers' base pay would have been
higher each of the last three legislative sessions – by $766 in
2009-2010, $1,452 in 2011-2012 and $6,378 in 2013-2014.
Anderson, however, said the legislature cannot change the way
it calculates legislative base pay. "It's as obviously simple as the
constitutional amendment language, which is as simple as language
gets," Anderson said.
She said legislative pay cannot be calculated based on anything but
median household income, and Citizens for Limited Taxation
will sue the state if the legislature does anything else. "They
can't play with it, they can't amend it," Anderson said. "It's the
Constitution."
The report also suggests eliminating the per diem payments, payments
made to lawmakers based on how many days they drive to the
Statehouse. The per diem payments range from $10 a day for lawmakers
from Boston and surrounding areas to $100 a day for lawmakers from
Nantucket. Not every lawmaker requests reimbursements.
In exchange, the report recommends increasing a stipend for office
expenses from the current $7,200 to $10,000 for those within 50
miles of Boston and $15,000 for lawmakers living more than 50 miles
from Boston. While lawmakers from Western Massachusetts will
disproportionately feel the cut to their per diem payments, which
range between $60 and $90 depending on their district, the $7,800
boost will be more than enough to cover the lost payments. In fact,
almost all lawmakers will see their compensation rise under the new
system.
With one month left to 2014 and little activity at the Statehouse,
only one lawmaker requested more than $7,800 in per diem payments
this year – State Sen. Benjamin Downing, a Pittsfield Democrat, who
requested $8,730.
State Rep. William "Smitty" Pignatelli, a Lenox Democrat, has
received $7,020. Rosenberg received $6,420. Another five legislators
got more than $5,000 in per diem payments this year: Gailanne
Cariddi, a North Adams Democrat; Michael Finn, a West Springfield
Democrat; Tricia Farley-Bouvier, a Pittsfield Democrat; Robert
Koczera, a New Bedford Democrat; and Sarah Peake, a Provincetown
Democrat.
The report estimates that overall, lawmakers will get an additional
$505,000 by eliminating per diem payments while increasing office
expenses.
Finn said he has no problem with the state eliminating per diem
payments in favor of a standardized system. "It would make it a lot
easier if they did do away with per diems," Finn said.
Finn said he supports raising lawmakers' pay. "You do the job
because you love it. It's not like you're getting rich doing this
position," Finn said. "I don't think people realize how expensive it
is to do the job. I'm out quite a bit, back and forth to Boston, the
wear and tear on the car."
"It's a difficult job to do from the western part of the state based
on the current compensation, especially with a family," Finn said.
Finn manages real estate in addition to working as a legislator.
Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance executive director Paul Craney urged
the legislature not to implement the recommendations. "Simply put,
passing the commission's proposals would send the wrong message at
the wrong time," Craney said in a statement. "With tens of millions
of dollars in cuts to local aid and other programs being proposed to
close a gaping hole in the state's budget, enormous pay increases
for politicians are a completely inappropriate use of taxpayer
money." Craney said he supports eliminating per diem payments but
does not support the raises.
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Pols recommend big pay hikes for ... pols
By Joe Battenfeld
Massachusetts’ political leaders have ascended to new heights of
hubris and cluelessness, an astounding accomplishment even for them.
The outgoing Democratic governor with a mini-mansion in the
Berkshires and the incoming GOP governor with a million-dollar home
in Swampscott are now clashing over a special legislative
“commission” plan giving the governor a $65,000 stipend — to pay for
housing.
Baker opposes it. Patrick is open to supporting it — at least
according to his press release. Deval won’t answer questions any
more unless he’s on “Meet the Press.”
The “special commission” — which at the State House translates as
“in the tank” — has also decided the state’s chief executive can’t
possibly do his or her job without a big pay hike. This despite the
fact four of the last five elected governors of Massachusetts,
including Baker, have been millionaires.
The better pay and perks are necessary, according to the commission,
because Massachusetts can’t attract good candidates for governor
without them. That’s why there were 10 candidates on the ballot this
year.
We’re just getting started.
The pay raise was cooked up in the waning weeks of a lame duck
legislative session by Democrats, the same party that ran campaign
ads trashing Baker for raising his pay in the private sector. The
elected officials in line for the biggest pay raises would be the
House speaker and Senate president, the same ones who created the
commission and will decide whether the pay hikes get through the
Legislature.
You following? There’s more.
The state, meaning taxpayers, would fund these big pay hikes at the
same time Patrick is cutting nearly $200 million from the budget due
to a deficit crisis. But that’s not a deal-breaker because our
intrepid lawmakers will come up with other cuts to pay for their
higher salaries.
This is like saying it’s OK for a couple behind in their mortgage
payments to spend $800 for a new 60-inch flat screen — as long as
they pay for it by cutting back on groceries and clothing for the
kids.
Most people would conclude they just can’t afford the new TV. But
not in the twisted logic of the Massachusetts Legislature.
The sad part is no one is really very surprised by this shady
proposal. It’s actually the second time a special “compensation
commission” released a plan at the end of a lame-duck session to
give elected officials a big pay raise. The first time was in 2008
when the panel included Steve Crosby, dean at UMass Boston’s
McCormack Graduate School. Crosby is now doing a bang-up job running
the state Gaming Commission.
This time the pay raise plan was put together by Ira Jackson, who is
the current dean at the McCormack Graduate School.
So here’s the lesson for Massachusetts taxpayers. Next time a UMass
Boston dean gets appointed to a special commission, grab your
wallets and flee to New Hampshire.
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
A Boston Herald editorial
No ‘emergency’ here
As far as we know the only people crying out for “fixing” the
compensation structure for public officials in Massachusetts are the
public officials themselves. But kudos to the folks on Beacon Hill
for making it appear we have a crisis on our hands.
With all due respect to members of the Special Advisory Commission
on Public Officials’ Compensation, their final recommendations,
released yesterday, were guaranteed from the word “go.” The
lawmakers who created this panel never would have done so had they
believed it would lead to anything but a push for more pay. Tasking
the panel with comparing public officials’ pay to earnings in the
private sector made it that much easier.
The commission dutifully concludes the compensation of
constitutional officers and legislative leadership is “generally
outdated and inadequate.” The governor’s pay should go up from about
$152,000 to $185,000 a year, which doesn’t sound so outrageous,
until the panel adds that the governor should also collect a housing
allowance of $65,000 a year.
Hey, Boston’s expensive!
At $185,000 the Massachusetts governor would earn more than the
governors of every other state but Pennsylvania. Even adjusted for
cost of living differences he would still earn more than the
governors of California and New York which the panel finds
appropriate “given the size, complexity and importance of the
governor’s position and state government in Massachusetts compared
with the other states.”
Sure, try telling that to Andrew Cuomo ...
Compensation for all other constitutional officers would go up,
along with pay for the House speaker and Senate president, whose
$175,000 salary under this plan would top every state with a
full-time legislature. And they should all get the same automatic
pay “adjustments” lawmakers get under the state Constitution, the
commission recommends. There is some tinkering on legislative pay
reforms but put it this way, no one would take a pay cut.
Panel chairman Ira Jackson acknowledged that pay raises are
controversial and notes the “fiscal environment and the prevailing
cynicism.” Were the Legislature to act on all of the recommendations
in this report in a lame-duck session that cynicism would be
entirely justified.
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Mass. lawmakers’ unlawful scheme to hike pay
By Jeff Jacoby
‘The louder he talked of his honor,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson in
1860, “the faster we counted our spoons.” As a resident of
Massachusetts, Emerson knew better than to take at face value
anything public officials say about their own rectitude. That was a
prudent attitude a century and a half ago. It’s just as prudent now.
So when Beacon Hill created a high-powered “advisory commission” to
evaluate the salaries paid to top elected officers and lawmakers,
only a naif could have doubted it would come back with anything but
a recommendation for hefty pay raises all around. Huge increases in
what are already among the highest salaries paid to legislative
leaders and statewide officials in America, concluded the commission
in a report released Monday, is the best way to attract “publicly
spirited and honest individuals” to state government.
Quick, count the spoons.
News stories have focused on the commission’s call for hiking the
governor’s total compensation by nearly $100,000 a year, and
boosting the six-figure salary of the House speaker and Senate
president by more than 70 percent. Since Governor-elect Charlie
Baker says he would “probably veto” any such legislation, the
Legislature may try to grease the skids and get the pay hikes passed
before Baker takes office in January.
But the biggest affront in this plan is the commission’s unlawful
scheme to engineer a raise for rank-and-file legislators.
In the long-running saga of Beacon Hill pay raises, underhanded
maneuvering has been the norm. Late at night on Halloween in 1979,
lawmakers rammed through a bill hiking their pay with no public
hearing or advance notice. Three years later the Legislature
returned to the trough, attaching a 50 percent raise for its members
to a judicial pay measure, which couldn’t be blocked by referendum.
In 1987, another ploy: A sizable (and retroactive) legislative
salary increase was passed with an “emergency preamble,” which made
it effective immediately — and immune to repeal until it was nearly
two years old. In 1994, Governor William Weld colluded with
legislative leaders to pass a bill enlarging the salaries of House
and Senate members by a stunning 55 percent.
Time and again, Beacon Hill politicos have justified such avarice by
lamenting that they had no better option — that there is never an
acceptable way for elected officials to give themselves a raise.
Time and again, Beacon Hill politicos have justified such avarice by
lamenting that they had no better option.
But then they devised one: They would put a cost-of-living
adjustment for legislative salaries right into the state
constitution, and forswear forever the right to vote on their
own pay. In 1988, voters were invited to approve a constitutional
amendment that would, once and for all, put the issue to rest. “A
Yes vote would prohibit state legislators from changing their base
pay,” explained the official voter guide, “and instead would adjust
that pay according to changes in median household income.”
The amendment passed handily. Lawmakers looked forward complacently
to receiving automatic biennial raises as a constitutional right,
forever. And sure enough, their salaries went up by a few percentage
points every two years, in keeping with the amendment’s explicit
formula adjusting legislative pay in tandem with median household
income.
Until median household income stopped going up in the wake of the
Great Recession.
In 2011, legislative base pay was trimmed by 0.5 percent. In 2013 it
dropped by another 1.8 percent. After a decade of scoring regular
raises without having to do anything to justify them — hey, it’s in
the constitution! — the Legislature was suddenly confronted with the
reality that salaries can go down, too.
But that’s not a reality every lawmaker is prepared to accept. And —
surprise, surprise — their “advisory commission” says they shouldn’t
have to. The panel recommends a new method of calculating changes in
Massachusetts state income, one that relies on statewide income data
“in the aggregate, not the median.” That may sound boringly
technical, but the bottom line is crystal-clear: The commission’s
recommended method would have raised legislators’ pay in 2011
and 2013.
But aggregate income isn’t what the constitution specifies. The
amendment drafted by the Legislature — and approved by the voters in
a landslide — made “median income” the touchstone. It forbids
lawmakers from voting for anything else. Beacon Hill, for once, has
been hoist with its own petard.
Assuming, that is, that in Massachusetts, the constitution rules.
Does it?
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
A race to the top not worth winning
Panel’s plan would see Beacon Hill salaries skyrocket
By Julie Mehegan
We think rather highly of ourselves here in Massachusetts and that
tendency is on full display in the report of the “Special Advisory
Commission on Public Officials’ Compensation” that was released on
Monday.
The panel was Oprah-esque in its recommendations (“You get a
raise! And you get a raise!”). Most of the attention was
focused on a proposed housing allowance for the governor and the
elimination of “per diem” payments for lawmakers.
But there was so much more to the story.
For example, the state Senate president and House speaker perform
jobs so vital that they should be paid more than their counterparts
in every other state in the union, the panel concluded. At about
$102,000 each, those positions are now so dramatically underpaid
that to bring them up to an acceptable level would require a 71
percent increase in salary (to $175,000).
And the job of governor of Massachusetts is so uniquely challenging,
we are assured, that a 22 percent pay hike is justified, which would
bring the total salary for the position to $185,000. The commission
also recommends instituting a new, $65,000 housing allowance, for a
total percentage increase in the governor’s compensation of 65
percent.
The proposed “update” to the governor’s salary would make it the
second-highest of the 50 states, second only to Pennsylvania.
Adjusted for cost-of-living differences it would rank 10th, which
the commission suggests is “appropriate given the size, complexity
and importance of the governor’s position and state government in
Massachusetts compared with the other states.”
But scroll through the report’s appendices to discover that still
behind Massachusetts on that adjusted salary list would be the
governors of California, New York and Ohio (along with the governors
of every other New England state).
We may truly believe ourselves to be superior to New York in every
way — but no one can argue with a straight face that serving as
governor of Massachusetts is more challenging than serving as
governor of the Empire State, which boasts a budget and a workforce
nearly three times that of Massachusetts.
And California? Well, it dwarfs Massachusetts in almost every
category, starting with a population six times ours.
The members of the commission are distinguished professionals from
diverse private-sector backgrounds, however the findings in their
report represent a classic Beacon Hill point of view. For example,
the fact that 1,254 Massachusetts state employees currently earn
more than the governor is presented as de facto justification
for a hike in the governor’s pay — rather than an occasion to
perhaps examine why 1,254 state employees with fewer
responsibilities than the state’s CEO earn possibly inflated
salaries.
Then there’s the “per diem” issue.
Lawmakers are eligible to collect the stipends for every day they
report to the State House for official business, with rates varying
depending on how far their district is from Beacon Hill. The
commission accurately describes the payments as “controversial” and
in its press release, places their elimination first on its list of
recommended reforms.
But look closely and you’ll find that the $300,000 savings from
eliminating per diems is swamped by the $805,000 cost of a
corresponding increase in office expenses allotted to each
legislator — for a net increase in legislative expenses of
$505,000.
Some observations that have been offered to justify the commission’s
recommendations: Public officials should be adequately compensated.
Most people don’t enter government service for the money. Pay raises
can be controversial.
All true statements — none of which is particularly germane to the
specific recommendations in this report, which seem to come from
another planet — landing just as the state is grappling with a huge
hole in the state budget. And while the commission “asserts” that
the pay adjustments “must be” cost-neutral there is no requirement
that it be so. That’s one very costly leap of faith.
In Massachusetts we take great pride in calling ourselves No. 1 in
the nation in student achievement. Soon we may get to boast that
we’re No. 1 in what we pay people who make the choice to run
for office — some of whom have no intention of ever looking for
employment elsewhere. Is that progress?
Julie Mehegan is deputy editorial page editor
of the Boston Herald.
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