Pay raise? Not for Pa. lawmakers this year
HARRISBURG - Inflation, or a lack thereof, has done what state lawmakers refused to do - freeze their salaries, at least for the next year.
HARRISBURG - Inflation, or a lack thereof, has done what state lawmakers refused to do - freeze their salaries, at least for the next year.
For the first time since 1995, the 253 members of the state House and Senate will not see any more in their monthly paychecks starting in December. Base legislative pay, like the economy, will remain stagnant at $78,315.
Salaries will stay the same for Gov. Rendell, other top state officials and judges, as well.
That's because a key inflationary rate that determines annual cost-of-living adjustments for many in power in Harrisburg was kept in check over the past 12 months.
Gene Stilp, a Harrisburg activist who has long protested against legislative pay raises and the COLAs, called the news "forced reform," but in his eyes, it was welcomed nonetheless.
"We have been trying to stop these stealth pay raises for years," said Stilp, founder of Taxpayers and Ratepayers United. "Finally, the economy has done what we have been unable to accomplish."
Believing they had struck on a way to avoid thorny raise votes in the future, the General Assembly 14 years ago tied pay bumps to the Consumer Price Index, a standard gauge of retail prices, over the preceding 12 months.
The final piece of that equation, statistics for the month of October in the Philadelphia region, were released this morning. This year, the rate actually dropped .14 percent - representing deflation.
No, that doesn't mean a pay cut for lawmakers. The COLA law, Act 51 of 1995, is very clear on that point - only an increase or a freeze could occur.
Despite the COLAs, a decade after they were enacted, the legislature voted themselves another pay raise, which increased base salaries by an additional 16 percent.
It was later repealed amid intense public outcry, and lawmakers returned to their lesser annual COLAs, which typically hovered in the 2 to 3 percent range.
Before you start feeling sorry for lawmakers having to make do without raises this coming year, know this: Their salaries have increased 40 percent over the past 14 years thanks to the COLAs.
