The people we elected two months ago to write our laws begin their work at noon today, joining those we elected two years ago. They are paid $35,915 a year and receive $119 a day per diem. Is that enough? Knowing that there are those who think they should receive nothing, is there nonetheless a minimum that is appropriate for the burden they shoulder on behalf of all 6.1-million Missourians?
Somebody once told your faithful observer that ministers who think they should be paid more than the average salary of the congregation are not long for that pulpit. That is more likely to work at the church on the corner than at the church on the television.
The latest figures we could find from the Census Bureau says the median household income in Missouri, in 2018 dollars was $53,560. The per-capita income from 2014-2018, in 2018 dollars, was $29,537. That means that each adult earned that much. And so did any children, even those asleep in their cribs.
We mention these things because one of the first major challenges to confront the Missouri General Assembly in 2021 will be their salaries and those of others in state government.
Years ago, before the small fire of distrust in politics had been turned into a blowtorch, the legislature established a 21-member Citizens’ Commission on Compensation for Elected Officials to meet every couple of years and study salaries paid to statewide officials, legislators, and judges and recommend any adjustments. The idea was to lessen voter criticism that lawmakers were feathering their own nests by voting themselves pay increases.
The commission is required to be diverse in makeup. State law says:
One member must have experience in the field of personnel management, one must represent organized labor; one must represent small business in the state, one must be the chief executive officer of a business doing an average gross annual business in excess of one million dollars; one must represent the health care industry; one must represent agriculture; and two must be over the age of 60 years; two public members appointed by the Governor must be citizens of a third class county (third class counties are small ones) north of the Missouri River, two must be citizens of a third class county south of the Missouri River; one member from each congressional district must be selected at random by the Secretary of State; one member must be a retired judge appointed by the judges of the Supreme Court.
An effort is made to avoid conflicts of interest.
No state official, no member of the general assembly, no active judge of any court, no employee of the state or any of its institutions, boards, commissions, agencies or other entities, no elected or appointed official or employee of any political subdivision of the state, and no lobbyist as defined by law shall serve as a member of the commission. No parent, spouse, child, or dependent relative of any person ineligible for service on the commission may serve on the commission.
But the commission’s work usually is all for naught for one reason.
The legislature has the power to reject the recommendation. And it does, time after time, because it fears the folks at home will accuse them of nest-feathering.
The legislature has to reject the recommendations by February 1. And it’s an all or nothing deal. Pay hikes have failed for fourteen years not only for legislators but for other elected officials, because the legislature has rejected every recommendation.
This year’s report, eighteen pages long, does not place a heavy burden on taxpayers. The commission estimates recommended raises for the 197 members of the legislature, all of the state judges, and the six statewide elected officials would cost the state about $200,000 a year, a pittance in a state budget that totals something north of $31-Billion before federal pandemic relief funds were added.
For the people we elected as our State Representatives and State Senators on November 3, the recommendations will mean nothing. They cannot accept pay raises during their current terms in office. So all 163 members of the House and half of the Senate (17) will not get raises if the recommendations are accepted. For them, the raises will kick in only if they get re-elected.
The commission suggests $37,111 would be fair for legislators, given the responsibilities lawmakers bear year-around, not just during the January-May sessions. The increase amounts to $1,096 for our legislators. That works out to $78.30 a year for the fourteen years since the last raise.
Only eighteen governors have lower salaries than Governor Parson has–$133,821. The commission’s recommendation would give him about $7,000 more.
For those who think government should be run as a business is run, let’s make this a business structure.
Governor Parson is the CEO of MOGOV INC. This is a $35.3 Billion multifaceted company serving people in every county and every town in the state of Missouri and has 197 employees assigned to serve every one of those counties and towns. It has a legal department to make sure the things it does for the people in those counties and towns are fair and proper under the law. The company has thousands of workers in its central office and branch offices.
Some folks who are not part of the corporation think a lot of those 197 employees are just part-timers. But they’re not. Those 197 people are at their customers’ beck and call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Their heaviest work period is usually January-May but they’re on duty all the time and they have no job security because their contracts that can be terminated every two or every four years. And on top of that, most of them are forced to leave their jobs after eight years regardless of their level of excellence. Once they go out the door, they can never come back. Ever, no matter how competent they are.
Somebody has come along, however, and says fourteen years is a long time to go without a raise; most of these people have never had one, in fact. Two-and-a-half percent isn’t much of an increase after all these years.
But they’re afraid to take it because their neighbors might talk. And so they’ll probably say, sometime this month, “That’s nice, but, no, that’s okay, you keep it.”
It is true that most of our 197 legislators have jobs in the real world. Only a few live on the salaries that have been frozen for more than a decade. But that’s not the issue.
You and I choose these people to represent us in one of the most difficult jobs a person can have. We entrust them to enact the policies that govern our lives from birth (or before) to death (and sometimes after). The way they go about it is often sloppy and ugly and not very dignified. But it’s their job and we expect them to find a way to satisfy enough of us that we’ll renew their contract every few years until we are prohibited by an unfortunate constitutional provision to do so.
How much should we pay the people who run a $35 Billion corporation that touches our lives every hour of every day?
They have not come to us to ask for a raise. People who represent us in this corporate structure think it’s time, after fourteen years, to give them a 2.5% bump. After fourteen years.
But they likely will consider it unseemly to take even a little pay raise when the thousands of employees in the central office and the branch offices are still among the lowest-paid in the country and company finances are shaky. This also isn’t a good time because of the problems caused by a pandemic and its impact on the livelihoods of those they work for in each county and town.
The commission has made a nice gesture. But our public servants are not likely to accept it. Again.
Someday, if enough of the public that has been encouraged for so long to mistrust the people they elect to serve them discovers most of their mistrust has been misplaced, there will be a little raise. But probably not this time.