Sen. Brad Lager lambastes salary commission’s recommendation
State Sen. Brad Lager
Sen. Brad Lager, R-Maryville blasted Missouri’s salary commission today for recommending that state elected officials should get a raise next year if state workers do.
Lager, who recently lost in the race for treasurer against state. Rep. Clint Zweifel, said the commission’s 9-0 decision uses state workers as a “pawn.”
“It is wrong for the Commission to take advantage of state employees as a way to force an increase for elected officials, and I will oppose it,” Lager said in a news release. “They have gone beyond their authority and have used state employees as a pawn in the unnecessary desire reward legislators.”
The commission is supposed to be made up of 22 members, but Gov. Matt Blunt has refused to appoint his apportionment of members. After pardoning two turkeys in a ceremonial action Tuesday, he told reporters he doesn’t believe elected officials need raises and he has no intention of appointing members to the commission. The state constitution says the governor “shall” appoint members to the commission. This is not the first time the salary commission has been ignored. State officials declined to appoint members in 2004, also.
The commission also voted to give $1,500 raises to associate circuit judges in Missouri, regardless of whether other state employees receive raises. Those raises will go into effect unless the House and Senate, by two-thirds majorities, vote to ignore the salary commission’s recommendations by Feb. 1. Before 2006, lawmakers could avoid the stigma of “approving” a raise by not including the money in the budget. Also, only a simple majority of lawmakers were needed to ignore the salary commission’s recommendations. Changes were made to the law because of the passage of Amendment 7 in 2006.
Lager said he intends to file a bill calling on the Legislature to ignore the salary commission recommendations. Said Lager:
“This timetable is unrealistic and the decisions of these ten people are clearly not in best interest of the taxpayers. In 2007, I introduced resolutions to disapprove of the pay increase and to reverse Amendment 7. This year I intend to file legislation striking down the pay raise and fixing this system by returning the power back to the voters.”
Last time I looked, “shall” was something someone had to do. Anyone ever hear of quo warranto?
Hopefully Lager won’t also grandstand by telling state employees they can’t have a raise either.
Brad Lager’s budgetary votes are a big part of the reason that Missouri’s state workers are consistently competing with Mississippi for being the country’s most poorly paid. I suppose he and his ilk would like to see our elected officials as badly compensated so that they’re entirely beholden to the special intersts for everything. What a non-thinker!
I don’t understand what Lager doesn’t like. Why shouldn’t pay raises be denied for elected officials who are in session less than half the year if they cannot come up with like raises for round-the-year employees?
All elected officials should have a 1 put in front of their present salaries(a state rep that now makes $30 k per yr would then make $130k per yr, etc), then there would be incentive for a working person to take the job. Competition is a good thing. Right now, a SMART person with a regular job can not afford to take a pay cut to run for office. If you would just think about it for a while, you would realize that present state elected officials are not working for the money, like the rest of us in our jobs; so what are they working for? Power.
Honor in Serving? Bull****! Pay ‘em for what is expected of them!
Auto workers are paid $60k a year to punch a button all day long to install screws, lawmakers that can change our lives-$30k. Only in government!
Oh, John the Painter. Have you been sniffing the fumes?
You are hardly comparing apples and oranges.
The assembly line workers works year round, usually at least 5 days per week. Sometime the night shift. And it is hard and sometimes dirty work. One tends to break a sweat.
On the other hand, the state legislature is in session from mid-January to early May, often only Monday thru Thursday. Sometimes Tuesday through Thursday.
If you consider they only work 80% of the typical work week in days and are only in session 4 months, you could extrapolate their salary to be the full-time equivalent of $112,500.
Also consider that most representatives have side jobs such as law practices (my one time state rep was a butcher). I think the pay structure combined with term limits have allowed us to eliminate the professional politician and opened up Jeff City for fresh ideas and less entrenchment with lobbyists.