The Cost of Public Service
This post is a bit of a departure for me, but after what I heard on the news yesterday, I just had to write. I have always appreciated public service and public servants. As a political science major, I learned about the sectors of our society: business, non-profit, and public. Back then I learned about the sacrifice made to serve in the public sector. Bright people who could have made lots of money in business dedicated their lives to serving us. This ideal described elected officials back then.
Certainly, we experienced corruption among some public officials. I grew up in a town who sent its mayor to jail. Still, the assumption was that those elected to office served their electorate. I have met a number of elected officials at the local, state, and national level. These people are sharp. They think quickly on their feet. They are informed and know how to use information. Sadly, I have felt my belief in the nobility of the elected officials erode over time.
The revolving door between business and the elected of both parties is spinning faster than ever as politicians leave office to lobby or work for the vary businesses they may have regulated. Salaries and perquisites have mushroomed for many after leaving office. Even this practice, though, I can stomach.
Listening to the news report on the proposed salary increase for Maryland legislators yesterday caused me more than my usual head-shaking in disbelief. I was and am disgusted.
I appreciate that legislators leave home and their livelihood for ninety days each year. I understand what that disruption can mean for their personal and professional lives. I appreciate the fact that the days may be long and that to be just a competent legislator, let alone a good one, means hours of reading, studying, and thinking about complex issues.
Still, many hardworking people make similar sacrifices. Many of these people disrupt their family lives to provide for their families. Our legislators work for about $43,500 a session. That’s ninety days or the equivalent of $174,000 per year. Several legislative leaders reportedly earn $56,000 per session and an annual equivalent of $224,000. In addition they can take a reimbursement of about $15,000 for lodging and travel or about $167 per day. Mileage is reimbursed at a rate of at least fifty cents per mile, well above federal reimbursement levels and those provided by many non-profits. According to the Washington Post, eighty percent took their reimbursements.
The General Assembly Compensation Committee recommended a $2,000 increase citing the fact that the legislators had had no increase since 2006. The beauty of this compensation system is that while legislators cannot increase the committee’s recommended amount, they can avoid voting themselves a raise by just doing nothing and letting the committee’s recommendation take effect.
At a time when, at best, state workers and workers in the private sector are holding steady, the idea of providing a raise for legislators when the state is in financial crisis is unconscionable. How could a committee of the legislature even consider such a move? By making the recommendation for a raise, the committee jeopardized the entire legislature.
Legislators had three options: vote for the raise– political suicide; do nothing and get the raise — cowardice; or vote it down — honorable. As of this writing, I was pleased to learn that Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, Jr. (D) and House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D), issued a joint statement saying that wouldn’t happen:”We have asked state employees and legislators to take furloughs, in order to keep people in the workplace,” Busch said. “Now is not the time to accept pay raises for legislators. We respectfully decline the salary recommendation of the commission.”
I commend them for taking the honorable path today, but why did the legislature’s own committee ever make the recommendation?
