State Legislators, Top Officials Get 26%-34% Raises

By CARL INGRAM

March 27, 1998 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SACRAMENTO — California’s governor, state legislators and other top officials Thursday got hefty pay raises ranging from 26% to 34%, prompting outrage from critics who note that 134,000 state employees have had no raise since 1995.

The large raises, on the heels of a 4% increase last year, will kick in Dec. 7 and will hike the governor’s salary--already the nation’s highest--from $131,000 a year to $165,000.

The raises were approved on a 4-3 vote by the nonpartisan Citizens Compensation Commission at a meeting in Burlingame.

Legislators’ pay will increase from $78,624 to $99,000 annually, keeping them the top paid state lawmakers in the land. And statewide officials ranging from lieutenant governor to insurance commissioner will see their pay rise a minimum of 26% and a maximum of 34%.

After the governor, the two highest-paid elected officials will be the attorney general and the superintendent of public instruction, each of whom will get $140,250 a year.

Supporters of the increases said they are necessary to attract skilled people from the private sector into public service. Politics, said Commissioner Jim Green, who proposed the pay package, is becoming a “hobby” for rich people.

“If you want good people,” Green said, “you’ve got to pay them.”

In addition to their salaries, lawmakers are paid a tax-free $833 a week for expenses while they are in session, or about $30,000 for a nine-month session.

Opponents called the increases excessive and predicted a furious response from the public.

“The voters of California are not only not happy with the Legislature and its actions, they’re very angry with the Legislature and its actions,” said Commissioner Robert Larkin. “In fact, they think they’re overpaid.”

Larkin said the public was upset by earlier, more modest raises. This time “there will be some fireworks,” he predicted.

“I think state employees are going to be out of their minds . . . when they find out . . . what we gave to the Legislature,” said Commissioner Nicholas Bavaria, another opponent of the pay raises.

State employee unions are negotiating with Gov. Pete Wilson for new contracts. Discussions are stalled over a 3% increase that the governor proposed last summer as part of a tax cut agreement with the Legislature.

“Where’s ours?” asked Dennis Trujillo, a Sacramento spokesman for unions representing state attorneys, engineers and scientists.

Drew Mendelson, spokesman for the California State Employees Assn., the largest of several state unions, said the commission’s action was a “dose of reality” about the need for higher pay for most state employees.

“Our members have been saying for three years that they needed a raise,” Mendelson said. “Since the beginning of the Wilson administration, state workers’ salaries have trailed 12% behind in purchasing power.”

Commission documents showed that during the past nine years, California civil servants have received average raises of 2.6% annually. From 1978 to 1988, they averaged 5.6% yearly increases.

The commission, founded in 1990 after voters approved a wide-ranging political reform law, has granted increases for officials with regularity over the past eight years. Its first such move boosted salaries 37%--but legislators earned $40,816 then and the governor $85,000.

The commission, whose seven members are appointed by the governor, denied raises for several years after that because of the recession and the state’s budget crisis. It approved a 5% increase in 1995.

The pay hike approved Thursday will affect Wilson, but not for long. By the time the raises take effect Dec. 7, Wilson will be in his final three weeks in office.

His spokesman, Sean Walsh, said Wilson believes that “the next governor, be it Democrat or Republican, is entitled to the increased compensation.”

Wilson recently began accepting his full salary after voluntarily turning aside 5% of it while the state was in a recession.

The pay raises caught the Capitol off guard, with most lawmakers gone to their districts for the weekend.

A spokesman for Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles) said the speaker believes that the pay raises for lawmakers are justified. “Legislators perform complex tasks that require a great deal of skill. They should be compensated accordingly,” said spokesman Rich Zeiger.

But at least one lawmaker was angry about the pay increase and vowed to turn it down.

Assemblyman Rico Oller (R-San Andreas), who refused to accept last year’s pay boost, criticized the latest raise as “ludicrous.”

“What world are the four commissioners who approved the raise living in?” Oller said. “People in the real world don’t get 26% pay raises handed to them. Perhaps it’s time to revisit the continued need for this commission.”

Part of the commission’s purpose was to deflect from the Legislature the political heat it took for setting its own salaries.

Some commissioners who favored raising the governor’s pay noted that the officeholder heads a state whose economy is the seventh-biggest in the world.

They said his pay should be commensurate with his responsibilities, noting that San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, who is paid $142,610 a year, now earns more than the governor, as do some city managers and county executives.

While the commission increased the pay of state legislators, it abolished the extra $12,000-a-year paid to the Senate and Assembly’s top leaders, including the speaker and Senate president pro tem.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Raises

The California Citizens Compensation Commission was created by 1990 by voters to decide pay raises for state officeholders. Here are the yearly salaries for California’s statewide officers and the Legislature as of Dec. 7 compared with the next highest-paying states:

Governor: $165,000

Pennsylvania: $130,297

New York: $130,000

New Jersey: $130,000

Lt. Governor: $123,750

New York: $110,000

Pennsylvania: $109,250

Attorney General: $140,250

Michigan: $112,000

Illinois: $111,697

Controller: $132,000

North Carolina: $117,669