February 11, 2019 1:04 PM
SB 81 – 346+% Increase for Legislators’ Pay in Georgia
Senate Bill 81 seeks to set the annual salary of Georgia legislators at “an amount equal to the median annual household income for citizens of the State of Georgia.” This would currently account for a raise from $16,200 to $56,183 in annual salary, or over $1,400 per day of the 40 day session.
The bill’s chief sponsor, Valencia Seay (D, 34th), had previously pre-filed Senate Bill 13 seeking a raise to $29,908 per year.
Bill Sponsors:
- Valencia Seay (D, 34th)
- Jennifer Jordan (D, 6th)
- Ed Harbison (D, 15th)
- Jeff Mullis (R, 53rd)
- Freddie Powell Sims (D, 12th)
- Emanuel Jones (D, 10th)
About Author
lawtonsack
Lawton is a graduate of Georgia Southern University (the GSU) with a degree in Information Technology. He has held numerous positions within the Georgia Republican Party throughout the years.
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346%! Not NO BUT HECK NO…. that’s ludicrous.
No cost of living raises for state retirees in 10 years, threatening other state retirement systems, but she wants a 346% raise?????
Check your math. It’s a 246% increase.
I support a 200% increase with the caveat it is accomplished with the reduction or elimination of some benefits that aren’t commonly provided in the private sector for part time work.
I am not going to get into the semantics when you know that the new amount is 3.46 times the current rate.
I get that most legislators do a range of legislative work between sessions, and per diem reimbursements may not cover the lost time of the full-time day job. But this bill doesn’t seem targeted at that, because it’s a full-time salary that doesn’t demand full-time work.
If you took the present $16,200, and assuming 40 days of work for the session, it nets to $405 per day. If you extrapolate that to 260 work days per year, that would mean the pay for the 40 days is based upon an annual salary of $105,300. That’s respectable already.
But I’d be OK with saying you could work and get compensated for an additional two weeks (80 hours or whatever) of legislative work performed over the course of a year while not in session. It could add balance to the benefits of a part-time legislature.
How about we go lower and make the session 20 days? That’s less days to pass bills that spend money or limit your rights.
You are looking at a cost of less than $9.5 million and the legislature votes on a budget totaling more than $26 billion. Just one bill, say, approving the new governor’s pet election contractor’s voting machines costs the taxpayers an extra $100 million over a more prudent and transparent paper balloting one. Hundreds of millions to billions tossed off in tax incentives to favored corporations. $100 million in tax credits to private, mostly religious schools…
Face it. The session may be 40 days but it stretches over the bulk of the first quarter of the year. Can a half-assed attorney bring in more than that from mid-January to early April, I think so. I am a fiscal conservative but much like college football players I would prefer it if they are paid above the table.
In the slightly mangled words of Bud Lezell, aka Mr. Belvedere, owner of Belvedere Construction Co, “You’re only in this world to know that you get what you pay for.”