The huge pay hikes proposed for Beacon Hill
legislative leaders this week are controversial in
themselves, but equally surprising is that some of those
leaders won’t be paying full federal taxes on their new
salaries — thanks to a little-noticed federal tax break.
For example, Senate President Stan
Rosenberg’s salary could go from $102,000 to $175,000 under
the plan. But because of a special deal Congress enacted in
1981, he can legally deduct a per-diem expense from his
income tax liability — a deduction allowed for any lawmaker
living 50 miles or more away from the State House. He lives
in Amherst, 93 miles away from Beacon.
Another example: Senator Ryan Fattman will likely get a
boost to the $15,000 extra he gets for being the GOP
assistant whip, if the raises are approved. Fattman lives in
Webster, more than a 50-mile ride to the State House. He has
refused to say whether he takes advantage of the federal
deduction.
The controversial tax deduction has arisen
in the past, such as when former House minority leader Steve
Pierce of Westfield revealed that he used the tax deduction
when he ran for governor in 1990. He was able to deduct
$42,000 from his $52,000 legislative salary. And Jane Swift,
when she was chosen to join Governor Paul Cellucci on his
1998 ticket, disclosed that she had lowered her taxable
income by $50,000 when she lived in North Adams and served
as a state senator.
The Boston Globe
Friday, January 20, 2017
A legislative perk — on top of potential pay raises
By Frank Phillips
An unaccustomed urgency crackles in the air
on Beacon Hill, where little of legislative substance
normally takes place in January. The reason? That cause so
dear to the legislative heart: a pay hike. With all other
eyes fixed on Washington, legislative leaders hope to rush
through a large pay increase for the speaker and senate
president, with a vote likely next week.
Mind you, the raise is moving forward under
the broader guise of an increase that also includes the
state’s six constitutional officers. Still, it’s no secret
that its driving force is House Speaker Robert DeLeo....
What he neglected to say: The proposed
increase for the speaker and senate president would make
them the nation’s highest-paid state legislative leaders....
Indeed, if this were a stand-alone bill,
state conflict-of-interest law would prevent lawmakers from
taking the raise this session. But as the Globe’s Frank
Phillips has reported, legislative leaders are scheming to
sidestep that restriction by attaching the pay increase to
another piece of legislation.
No matter what size pay hike they settle on,
lawmakers need to slow down, allow ample time for the public
to voice its sentiments, and stipulate that any pay hike
won’t take effect until two years hence. If lawmakers don’t
abide by the appropriate process, Governor Charlie Baker
should cast a veto to stop any ill-considered rush for a
raise.
A Boston Globe editorial
Friday, January 20, 2017
Lawmakers need to slow down their pay hike push
. . . As lawmakers waited for more concrete
details from Baker and scurried to meet their own Friday
soft deadline for filing bills, House and Senate leaders
floated a trial balloon carrying pay raises for themselves
that wasn't immediately popped by Baker.
Just six weeks ago, a spokesman for Senate
President Stanley Rosenberg told the News Service there was
"not any effort currently underway" to increase legislative
pay. That may have been true at the time, but not anymore.
The Joint Committee on Ways and Means
announced rather plainly and with no elaboration on Tuesday
that after letting it sit on a shelf for two years the
committee would dust off a commission report recommending
substantial pay raises for legislative leaders and
constitutional officers like the governor and give it a
hearing.
It stands to reason that Rep. Brian Dempsey
and Sen. Karen Spilka would not be wasting the time of their
colleagues or the members of the commission like UMass
Boston Vice Provost Ira Jackson if they weren't reasonably
sure they wanted to press the issue.
But considering the political sensitivities
and ethics concerns surrounding a vote, top legislative
leaders appeared determined to keep the details of how it
would be done, if it will be, shrouded in mystery.
When the report was first published in
December 2014, Gov.-elect Charlie Baker issued a swift veto
threat. That was not the case this time around. A spokesman
for the governor said Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito would
not, themselves, accept a pay raise, but did not completely
shut the door.
State House News Service
Friday, January 20, 2017
Weekly Roundup
Recap and analysis of the week in state government
By Matt Murphy
The Joint Ways and Means committees held a
public hearing Thursday on a two-year-old report
recommending pay increases. Afterwards, Rep. Paul Donato
said House Speaker Robert DeLeo "wants to wait to see what
is going to happen Monday with regard to the report from
Ways and Means first. So that's where we are."
He added, "There was a hearing on Ways and
Means today. That was not a bill, that was a report. Now the
question is, what's Ways and Means going to do with the
report? Are they going to send it out as a bill, or are they
just going to digest it as a report and be done with it, and
then we'll go to the next step."
State House News Service
Friday, January 20, 2017
Advances — Week of January 27
This latest Beacon Hill pay heist is about
two very old guys looking for two very big pensions.
Grumpy old men grabbing obscene money on
their way to the dog track.
C’mon down, Senate President Stanley
Rosenberg, age 67 as of November, and House Speaker Robert
DeLeo, who turns 67 in March.
Under this highway robbery, the salaries of
these hack lifers would rise from $102,000 to $175,000.
That’s huge right there, but it’s just the appetizer. In the
not too distant future, they are both looking at 80 percent
pensions based on their three highest-salaried years at the
public trough.
Let’s do the math: 73,000 times .80 is
58,400, divided by 12 is 4,860. That’s $4,860 a month on
their pensions — extra! On top of what they’d already be
grabbing in return for a lifetime of per diems, three-day
weekends and full health insurance.
Put another way, if this goes through (and
it will, obviously) the monthly kiss in the mail for
Rosenberg and DeLeo will rise to $11,600 and change for an
annual grab of $140,000.
Perhaps you didn’t realize the hacks were
planning to give themselves another pay raise. But how much
longer did you expect them to wait?
The last one they got was in December,
almost four weeks ago....
As is their wont, the payroll patriots
complain that they need a “living wage.” Their current
salary, after last month’s generous hike, is $62,547. That
doesn’t include the leadership “stipends” (almost all have
phony-baloney titles), their per-diems ($10 to $100 for
allegedly driving to work every day), plus an additional
$7,200 annually for “expenses.”
In 1998, they pushed a referendum question
through a gullible electorate, handing themselves automatic
pay hikes based on the state’s median income. Seemed like a
no-brainer, until the 2008 recession. Their pay was cut —
twice — and the whining started.
Rep. Angelo Scaccia (D-Readville) said at
the hearing that when he heard about the December pay raise,
his wife began planning a vacation, until she found out it
was “only” a 4.1 percent increase. Did I mention Angelo is
74?
Under their infinitely malleable ethics
rules, the hack solons aren’t supposed to immediately cash
in on their own legislation. But there are lots of ways
around that, perhaps the most amusing of which would be
attaching an “emergency preamble” to the pay raises, making
them effective ... well, how does the day before yesterday
sound? An emergency preamble on the second legislative pay
hike in a month. Fill in your own joke here.
The Boston Herald
Sunday, January 22, 2017
Hacks in a rush to fatten paychecks and pensions
By Howie Carr
. . . Some supporters of the per diems say
the system is fair and note the rising costs of travel, food
and lodging. They argue that many legislators spend a lot of
money on travel to Boston and some spend the night in Boston
following late sessions. Others say that some legislators
accept the per diem but use it to support local nonprofit
causes. They say that not taking the per diem would leave
that money in the state’s General Fund to be spent
frivolously.
Some opponents argue that most state
employees, and even people working for private companies,
are not paid additional money for commuting. They say the
very idea of paying any per diem is outrageous when
thousands of workers have lost their jobs and homes, and
when funding for important state programs has been cut....
The senator who received the most per diem
money in 2016 is former Sen. Benjamin Downing
(D-Pittsfield), who received $8,280.
The other four senators who received the
most are Sens. Karen Spilka (D-Ashland), $6,534; Stan
Rosenberg (D-Amherst), $5,700; and Donald Humason
(R-Westfield), $4,554; and former Sen. Daniel Wolf
(D-Harwich), $4,860.
Beacon Hill Roll Call
January 9-13, 2017
The Special Commission concluded that the
compensation of the commonwealth's constitutional officers
and legislative leadership is generally outdated and
inadequate. "Massachusetts state government is ... a large
and complex organization that provides vital services that
affect every citizen, and as such it needs to attract
talented, publicly spirited and honest individuals from
diverse socio-economic and geographic backgrounds to fulfill
its mission of serving every citizen," said the commission
report.
The report continued, "Compensation for
public officials should be adequate to attract and retain
qualified individuals to a public career and ensure that
there is not a temptation to betray the public trust." ...
While the commission recommends that the per
diem should be eliminated, it also suggests that the annual
general expense allowance for each legislator should
increase from $7,200 to $10,000 for members whose districts
are within a 50-mile radius of the Statehouse and to $15,000
for districts located outside of that radius. The most
recent increase in office expense was a hike from $3,600 to
$7,200 in 2000....
Finally, the commission recommends changing
the source and data on which current biennial legislative
salary increases and decreases are based. In 1998, voters
approved by a two-to-one margin a constitutional amendment
requiring governors to calculate and announce an increase or
decrease in legislative salaries every two years. The
specific language 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 $62,547 salary means legislative
salaries have been raised $16,137, or 34.8 percent, since
the mandated salary adjustment became part of the state
constitution.
During the week of January 16-20, the House
met for a total of one hour and 47 minutes while the Senate
met for a total of one hour and nine minutes.
Beacon Hill Roll Call
Monday, January 23, 2017
The plot thickens on the issue of
legislative pay raises. Why should we be surprised?
Last week House Speaker Robert DeLeo and
Senate President Stan Rosenberg announced out of the blue
that they had scheduled a hearing on a special report that
recommended huge pay hikes for the two leaders and for
constitutional officers — a report that is more than two
years old.
If lawmakers had designs on adopting the
report’s recommendations it would be awkward (though not
unprecedented) to do so without ever holding a hearing on
them, so it was clear something was afoot.
But as taxpayers might recall from the flap
over this report two years ago, conflict-of-interest laws
prevent lawmakers from voting on bills that would deliver
them a financial benefit. If they vote on a pay raise bill
now, the raises likely couldn’t take effect until the next
Legislature is sworn in. Base pay for all lawmakers is also
set under a process laid out in the state Constitution, so
the bill couldn’t adjust that.
But the creative minds on Beacon Hill may
have plotted a way around the pesky conflict rules — and
possibly even the state constitution — to their financial
benefit.
If they approve the raises for top lawmakers
not in a stand-alone bill but in a general spending bill
lawmakers may be able to vote on them — and accept
whatever financial benefit comes along with them, right
away.
And while a budget bill couldn’t adjust base
pay for rank-and-file lawmakers, it could adopt the report’s
recommendation to boost their office expenses. Rep. Angelo
Scaccia also said lawmakers would likely move to increase
the stipends that many lawmakers collect for leadership
positions.
“If you’re going to raise the big people,”
Scaccia said, “you’re going to raise the people underneath.”
Yes, it’s a big, expensive boulder gathering
steam as it heads downhill, right in the direction of
taxpayers.
Boston Herald editorial
Monday, January 23, 2017
Salary shenanigans
