State officials rewarded for doing poor job

It’s not just the lackluster or more recently unacceptable performance of too many of our elected officials in Harrisburg. It’s not just the serial scandals that have forced some to resign and landed others in jail.

It’s also the naked self-interest that are often at the heart of all of the above. It’s the shamelessness.

Consider recent events. The Legislature didn’t manage to pass a complete state budget until months after its constitutional deadline. That impasse prompted a downgrade to the state’s credit rating that will increase costs to the public.

Consider also that the budget is another ugly piece of work, propped up by borrowing and one-time fixes. That could leave Pennsylvania vulnerable to yet another credit downgrade.

It’s fair to say that wouldn’t make for a positive performance review out here in the workaday world. It might even by cause for firing.

So what will be the upshot for public officials who spent months dawdling while vital business went unattended, and who failed to resolve it responsibly when they did get around to it? They’ll be getting a raise.

It’s automatic. It doesn’t matter what kind of a job they do.

Effective Dec. 1, rank-andfile legislators received a $702, or 0.81 percent, raise to $87,180. Legislative leaders will see their pay increase as well, to about $136,000 for the highest-ranking. Pay raises for Gov. Tom Wolf and other executive branch officials will kick in on Jan. 1, although Wolf donates his salary to charity.

The automatic, inflationadjusted increases have been in place since 1995, and have helped lawmakers and executive branch leaders do steadily better at a time when the wages of many of their constituents have stagnated. That adds to the disconnect between public officials and the people they serve.

And it’s not like Pennsylvania’s lawmakers are playing catch-up. They’re the secondhighest paid in the country, behind only California’s. They also get a buffet of perks that go well beyond those typical in the private sector.

It’s true that some officials don’t accept the automatic raises, donating them to charity or writing a check to the state treasury. But those raises will still count when the time comes to calculate their pensions. Wolf is not accepting a state pension.

One argument for automatic raises is that they help inoculate Harrisburg against bigger mischief, like the 2005 pay grab that caused such backlash that it was ultimately repealed. But giving automatic payments to remove the temptation to take even more doesn’t exactly put the public interest first.

Legislators should ditch the automatic raises. Or they should at least change the law to withhold them if all involved fail to pass a budget, all of it, on time.

— The Erie Times News, The Associated Press