Freeze state pay raises, watchdog urges
HARRISBURG -- Taxpayers could save nearly $3 million if the Legislature in January votes to kill a 1.7 percent automatic cost-of-living raise for lawmakers, judges and state officials, Auditor General Jack Wagner said Tuesday.
"It's not something big in terms of a dollar number, but symbolically, it's huge," Wagner said, noting Pennsylvania faces a deficit of $4 billion to $5 billion next year.
Top state officials get raises starting today. Wagner suggested a moratorium on the pay increases and said otherwise he would return his to the Treasury. Gov.-elect Tom Corbett said he would donate his to charities.
"It's nice they're talking about a moratorium. I say let's kill this altogether," said Don Thomson of Hempfield, chairman of the Conservative Coalition of Westmoreland County.
Rep. Eugene DePasquale, a York Democrat, said he plans to introduce a bill to repeal the raises.
"In today's economy, pay increases for public officials cannot be justified," he said.
Corbett agreed, saying: "I think it's very difficult to be expecting (raises)." His $145,529 salary as attorney general rises to $148,000 today. Although Corbett did not say he would ask lawmakers to repeal the cost-of-living raise, he said it's a topic they should discuss.
When he becomes governor in January, Corbett, a Shaler Republican, said he plans to donate his raise, keeping his salary at the $174,914 that Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell earns. The governor's salary increases $2,974 to $177,888.
Rendell returns about $2,700 and, combined with higher taxes he pays, his salary effectively is $170,000, said his spokesman Gary Tuma.
Nearly every year, lawmakers denounce the automatic increase and suggest its repeal, or announce they'll donate money to charity. But no bill introduced to repeal the law has gained traction in the Legislature. Treasury Department data show 130 lawmakers returned $190,000 during the past two years.
A repeal or a moratorium after salaries increase today could result in a legal challenge, because of a constitutional prohibition against reducing judicial pay.
Salaries for Supreme Court justices rise $3,170, to $189,620. Common Pleas Court judges get $2,751 more a year, or $164,601.
Rank-and-file lawmakers will get a $1,331 increase, to $79,646. Cabinet members overseeing large state agencies get a $2,379 boost, to $142,310.
Wagner acknowledged he voted for the automatic increase in 1995 when he was a state senator and said he supports the concept as a way to avoid big pay increases. That didn't work, he said, in 2005 when legislators approved a pay boost that they repealed four months later amid public outcry.
Wagner said he suggested the moratorium because he believes it's bad timing, in this economy, for state officials to get raises when senior citizens for two years haven't received Social Security increases.
Charitable donations are a step in the right direction but don't go far enough, he said. "I don't think that sends a strong message to the people of Pennsylvania."
Taxpayer advocates are pushing for a repeal, noting the automatic raise means lawmakers don't have to go on record each year by voting on the issue. Eric Epstein of Harrisburg, an outspoken critic of the Legislature, said the automatic raise "is an annual stealth pay raise, which has no relation to merit or quality of work product."
The raises are based on the Consumer Price Index for Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland set by the Department of Labor. No increase was provided last year.
