No raise is right move

State lawmakers and other top state officials will not get a cost-of-living salary increase in 2021 because legislators took the unusual step of passing a law to freeze salaries for the coming year.

It was the right move in light of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and economic upheaval ravaging the state. With the unemployment rate at 7.3% at the end of October — more than 465,000 people out of work — it would have sent the wrong signal for lawmakers and state officials to accept a pay raise, no matter how small it might have been.

Lawmakers and the governor recognized the need to set an example and unanimously approved a bill in October that halts a salary increase based on the Consumer Price Index for urban customers in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland. The annual cost-of-living adjustment has been in place since 1995 as a way to avoid having legislators vote themselves pay raises.

The increase of 1.9% last year went to the state’s legislative, judicial and top executive branch officials, including the governor, lieutenant governor, Cabinet members and elected row officers. The cost of the salary increases last year amounted to about $3.2 million and set lawmakers’ salaries at $90,335, although legislative leaders make considerably more.

Saving a similar amount this year won’t make a significant dent in the state’s overall budget of more than $35 billion for the fiscal year, but it was appropriate — and politically smart — for lawmakers to demonstrate some willingness to sacrifice.

Only twice before have state officials and lawmakers not received a COLA since the Public Official Compensation Act was approved in 1995; both times it was because the CPI showed no change or a negative one from the previous year.

Rep. Frank Ryan, R-Lebanon, who sponsored the bill to halt the COLA for 2021, said it was a matter of shared sacrifice during the coronavirus pandemic.

“It is the very least we can do to make this small sacrifice when so many of the residents of Pennsylvania are having to make hard decisions because of the changes to their financial situation because of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Mr. Ryan said in a memo attached to his bill.

Forgoing a salary increase sends the right message to state residents that lawmakers are aware of their struggles.