Article published January 01, 2007
Ohio lawmakers get automatic 1.7% pay increase
Many of these same legislators voted against hiking state's $5.15 minimum wage for all workers
By JIM PROVANCE
BLADE COLUMBUS BUREAU
COLUMBUS - Ohio lawmakers' paychecks automatically grow by 1.7 percent in 2007.
An annual cost-of-living adjustment hiked lawmakers' salaries even as critics challenged many of those same lawmakers for voting to deny raises to some of Ohio's lowest-paid workers under the state's new minimum wage.
Former Senate Democratic leader C.J. Prentiss (D., Cleveland), an ardent supporter of the recently passed minimum wage constitutional amendment, doesn't begrudge her colleagues the annual raises she has enjoyed herself.
"Absolutely [they deserve it], as does everybody else," she said. "The issue is that everybody deserves a cost-of-living increase. The problem is when lawmakers get theirs and don't want other people to."
As of today, the vast majority of Ohio workers receiving the federal minimum wage of $5.15 will see their pay raised to $6.85 an hour. But the Republican-controlled General Assembly voted to exempt home-healthcare workers, amusement park employees, and some agricultural workers.
But under a state law passed in 2000 and signed into law in December, 2000, by Gov. Bob Taft, state legislators, statewide elected officials, judges, and county and township elected officials receive annual raises each January 1 based on the increase in the cost of living during the previous year up to a maximum of 3 percent.Rank-and-file state representatives and senators will earn $58,934 a year this year, while House Speaker Jon Husted (R., Kettering) and Senate President Bill Harris (R., Ashland) will be paid $91,865.
The only way the automatic pay raises would not have occurred today is if state lawmakers had passed a new law to stop them. That didn't happen.
The biggest one-time salary jump came in the governor's office where the top executive's salary, at Mr. Taft's request, had been excluded from the 2000 pay-raise law.
The salary of Governor-elect Ted Strickland will jump to $144,831 a year, about 10 percent higher than the $130,000 a year received by Mr. Taft. The increase is the equivalent of the accumulated cost-of-living adjustments that Mr. Taft did without.
The higher governor's salary will still represent a slight pay cut for Mr. Strickland, who will take the oath of office shortly after midnight on Jan. 8. Mr. Strickland is paid about $150,000 a year as a U.S. congressman representing the 6th District, which snakes along the Ohio River.
The next governor, however, is expected to gain financially by giving up apartments he has kept in Washington and in Lisbon, Ohio. He and his wife, Frances, plan to keep their Columbus condominium, even though they will live at the governor's residence in nearby Bexley.
The lieutenant governor's salary had also been frozen along with Mr. Taft's, so that job will receive a similar 10 percent boost, to $75,916 a year. Incoming Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher, however, is expected to receive a much larger salary because he will also be state development director. That salary had yet to be set, but Mr. Taft's last lieutenant governor, Bruce Johnson, earned $133,931 in the development post.
Incoming Attorney General Marc Dann, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, Auditor Mary Taylor, and Treasurer Richard Cordray will all be paid $106,990.
Former Rep. Jim Hoops (R., Napoleon), forced out of office as of today by term limits, said he believes it was the right decision in 2000 to give lawmakers a one-time 22 percent salary bump after several years without a raise and then to tie subsequent raises through 2008 to inflation.
He sponsored the 2000 law in which lawmakers piggybacked onto a smaller pay-raise proposal initiated by county officials.
"It was the fairest way to do a pay raise," he said. "Sure, there were some that wanted to do a lot more. There were legislators who told me that."
Some county officials around the state have already begun pushing for another bill to extend the pay-raises beyond 2008. A preliminary proposal calls for a one-time $3,000 raise in 2009 and subsequent 3 percent annual cost-of-living adjustments.
Lucas County Commissioners Tina Skeldon Wozniak and Pete Gerken opposed the idea in letters in September to legislative leaders.
"At this point, especially in urban counties, we have unionized work forces that are challenged with pay in a tough economy," said Mr. Gerken. "We're asking other people who work for us to be modest in what they need, so we don't think elected officials, who are public servants who aren't in it for the money, need pay raises."
He said he plans to accept this year's raise and the next two that have already been approved because they would not exceed the 3 percent raises negotiated for county workers.
Lucas County commissioners' pay increased from $83,287 last year to $84,703 this year.
David Hansen, president of the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, suggested automatic pay hikes are not a good idea.
"We're a state with the third-highest state and local tax burden in the country," he said. "Ohio is 350,000 jobs behind where we ought to be if the economy were performing on average since 2000. All together, we can't afford automatic pay raises for every legislator. Every cost of government from top to bottom needs to be looked at from the standpoint of whether we can afford it."
There are no automatic cost-of-living adjustments in Michigan, where the governor's salary is recommended by an independent commission and then approved by the legislature. Gov. Jennifer Granholm's salary of $177,000 will remain unchanged. Spokesman Liz Boyd noted the governor has returned 5 percent of her salary to the state in each of the last three years.
Salaries of county officials across the state are pegged to population, with eight different ranges, from $36,336 a year for a county commissioner in a county with a population up to 20,000 to $89,955 a year for county with a population over one million.
The exception is the salaries of circuit and district court judges, which are not a function of the population of the courts' jurisdictions.
Here are the 2007 salaries of elected officials in some local counties:
•In Lucas County, the prosecutor and coroner are each paid $115,285 a year; engineer, $101,391; sheriff, $97,606; auditor, $88,763; commissioners, $84,703; clerk of courts, $80,210; treasurer, $71,298, and recorder, $69,345.
•In Wood County, the prosecutor is paid $112,552 a year; engineer, $92,600; sheriff, $82,221; auditor, $74,663; clerk of courts, $67,026; commissioners, $63,833; treasurer, $59,579; recorder, $55,673, and coroner, $49,814 because he has a private medical practice.
•In Sandusky, Seneca, and Hancock counties prosecutors are paid $112,552; engineers, $87,718; clerks of courts, $70,204; sheriffs, $67,482; auditors, $66,527; commissioners, $54,012; treasurers, $51,765; recorder, $48,836, and coroners, $40,044.
•In Ottawa and Fulton counties, prosecutors are paid $101,299; engineers, $83,029; sheriffs, $57,916; auditors, $56,549; clerks of courts, $43,951; treasurers, $43,951; commissioners, $43,211; recorders, $41,998, and coroners, $27,346.
Contact Jim Provance at:
jprovance@theblade.com
or 614-221-0496.
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