Following Budget Success, Give'em a Raise

According to a piece in the Milwaukee JS by Steven Walters, the Joint Committee on Employment Relations unanimously approved pay raises for state legislators and other state officials, including:

The 6.3% pay raise for legislators will take their salaries from $47,413 to $50,438. The $88 tax-free daily expense stipend that most legislators get when in the Capitol would not be increased; legislators from Dane County would still get a $44 per diem.

The article also reported the following pay increases:

Under the changes, the governor elected in November 2010 will see his or her salary rise from $137,092 to at least $147,313, a 7.4% raise. The next governor's base salary will probably be higher, because cost-of-living raises for non-union workers expected to be approved two years from now also usually go to all elected state officials.

Four other constitutional officers - attorney general, lieutentant governor, secretary of state and treasurer - would also get 7.4% raises, starting when their new terms begin in January 2011. The attorney general is now paid $137,092; lieutenant governor, $72,394; and both secretary of state and treasurer, $65,079.

The superintendent of public instruction who is elected to a new four-year term in April 2009 will be paid $122,516. That will be 11.7% more than the $109,587 now paid Superintendent of Public Instruction ElizabethBurmaster.