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December 05, 2005
Good Pay for Bad Legislators
The California legislature will move their base salary from $99,000 to $110,880 next year. The California Citizens Compensation Commission, which was created by a voter-approved proposition in 1990, voted to give a 12% pay raise to legislators making them the highest paid lawmakers in the United States.
In addition to the high salaries lawmakers receive about $1040 per month for a new leased car and car expenses, plus $138 per diem while in session. Despite being the highest paid in the nation, lawmakers still argued that this is the first pay raise they've had in the past 7 years and if they had maintained a simple cost of living adjustment, their salary would now be over $121,000 per year.
(Then again, if their salary was tied to performance - they would owe us money!)
However, if you are one of those that believe without [good pay] we're not going to attract to [good legislators] then California ought to be the best run state in the country! Certainly it ought to be better run than Massachusetts where legislators earn a mere $53,380 per year. However, Massachusetts outperforms California in almost every category, especially in quality education, California's largest expenditure.
Our legislature receives annually about 100 billion in revenues, yet they still manage to spend more than they take in. 39.9% of the budget goes to K-12 education, yet California schools rank in the bottom 1/3 of nation. Next in line is the 32.3% of the pie that goes to health and human services (welfare) and Dems say we need to increase spending for schools and welfare???
Here's an idea: Why don't we reduced the number of legislators by 12% to offset their 12% raise? That would save us some money.
Note: A recent field poll showed 64% of Californians felt the legislators were doing a poor job.
Posted by Post Scripts at December 5, 2005 11:11 AM