Salary raises for elected officials approved by panel

Commissioner Stuart Hill signs a resolution after the Independent Citizens Commission passed its final report on salary changes for elected officials Monday, March 16, 2015. Commission Chairman Larry Ross and Commissioner Barbara Graves are to his right.
Commissioner Stuart Hill signs a resolution after the Independent Citizens Commission passed its final report on salary changes for elected officials Monday, March 16, 2015. Commission Chairman Larry Ross and Commissioner Barbara Graves are to his right.

The commission tasked with setting the pay for elected officials voted Monday in favor of the salary increases it recommended earlier this year, though not before commissioners debated whether they had any flexibility to make changes or if they had to simply vote up or down on the preliminary figures.

The changes made by the Independent Citizens Commission include more than doubling state legislators' salaries and boosting pay for judges and all constitutional officers with the lone exception of lieutenant governor. A full interactive breakdown of the new figures is available here.

The legislative pay changes are contingent on the chambers eliminating an office-expense reimbursement that allowed lawmakers to claim up to $14,400 a year.

The panel first voted to table finalizing its salary report until it could get an opinion from the attorney general's office about how it can proceed. But the commission later rescinded that vote after Commissioner Stephen Tipton noted that it wouldn't make sense to wait if enough panelists were planning to vote in favor of the initial figures even after hearing from the public.

The commission then voted 5-2 in favor of the raises.

Chairman Larry Ross expressed strong disagreement with the interpretation that the panel could make no changes Monday, saying that if that's the law, then "something's wrong with the way it's written."

He said he went through the process believing that changes could be made at the final stage after hearing from the public.

"With that not being the case, then if the commission is fine with that, fine," he said. "But Ross is not."

Ross voted against adopting the final resolution, as did Commissioner Stuart Hill, who also said the process called into question the purpose of the public comment period.

"The law stinks," he said. "That's all I can say."

Hill also noted that most of the public comments received in writing or through the hearing earlier this month were against the raises.

Commissioner Mitch Berry told the panel it still could take into account the public comment and vote down the proposal, while Vice Chairman Chuck Banks said he believed that the "vast majority of people not commenting are reasonably comfortable and satisfied with this."

"I think we've done the right thing," Banks said.

Reader poll

Do you agree with the salary panel's decision on raising elected officials' pay?

  • Yes, they all deserve raises. 8%
  • No, they deserve smaller raises. 26%
  • No, they don't deserve raises at all. 48%
  • I agree with other elected officials' raises but not legislators'. 12%
  • I agree with raising legislators' pay but not others'. 2%
  • Other (please comment) 4%

305 total votes.

photo

Salary increases passed by the Independent Citizens Commission.

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