Lawmaker pay needs reform

It looks like the biggest winners from the 75th Legislature were the lawmakers themselves.

State senators and representatives, it was revealed Wednesday, won not just one but two increases to their already lucrative pensions.

Meanwhile, the first skirmish in the upcoming election year is whether top statewide elected leaders should accept an outrageous $12,000-per-year salary hike approved in the state budget.

All this from a Legislature that repeatedly worried about money, could approve only a flat $100-month boost for state employees who've gone raise-less for several years, and then choked on providing major property tax reform.

As with too much else in Austin, there are virtually no fingerprints on any of these raises. Everyone has plausible deniability, as they say in politics.

First, lawmakers boosted their pensions when they raised judges' salaries. It couldn't be helped, lawmakers said; some past legislative session tied pensions to judicial pay.

Lawmakers also approved a bill to nudge the pension forumla multiplier, used to determine state employees' retirement benefits, from 2 percent to 2.25 percent.

The lawmakers said they didn't intend for this to apply to them, but the state Employee Retirement System said Wednesday the multipliers need to be uniform across the board. And so they are, as we suspect some lawmakers knew they would be.

Thus, come Sept. 1, lawmakers who only make $600 a month can now look forward to a $1,471 monthly pension, up 30 percent from $1,130, if they retire after eight years of service.

For long-standing lawmakers, the pensions can add up to tens of thousands of dollars a year. And voters have nothing to say, unless they consider it reason enough to toss someone out of office.

The 15-percent raise for top elected officials was unjustified and poorly handled, as well.

Gov. George Bush and Railroad Commissioner Carole Rylander early on said they wouldn't accept it, and Comptroller John Sharp has now joined them. The other leaders should reject it, too. These people knew what the pay was when they ran for the office.

Our elected officials should not be so poorly paid that they have to worry about how they'll make ends meet. For that reason we've in the past believed state lawmakers should be paid more than $7,200 a year. But voters have refused to approve raises, and they'll certainly keep refusing them now.

The answer? Consider adopting a practice some other states are turning to: an appointed commission to study and enact government compensation, for governor down to state legislator.

We recognize that many lawmakers sacrifice much, work hard and aren't in this for the money. But the sight of lawmakers writing their own generous pension packages is unseemly and further erodes already dwindling public trust.