Legislative pay panel sought
HARRISBURG – Bucks County Reps. Chris King and John Galloway are calling for the establishment of an independent commission to establish the salary and benefits package for legislators. The two freshmen lawmakers are presenting their case today at the House Legislative Reform Commission, which is taking testimony from the public at the Philadelphia Convention Center for phase two of its work.
King said he wants the commission to consider recommending to the full House chamber a proposal that would establish an independent body that would have binding authority to compare state lawmakers’ salaries and benefits to the private sector and other public officials and make changes.
“It’s a problem for us to be able to determine our own benefits,” King said. “It hasn’t worked out in the last couple years so we’re trying a different approach here.”
Pennsylvania lawmakers are renowned for their generous benefits package. The annual base salary is $73,600, and they also get $148 per diems for days spent in Harrisburg, free medical, dental and vision care, a generous pension allowing them to retire at age 50, and long term care insurance and life insurance.
The benefits have been debated individually, but King said they should be considered as a whole and brought in line more with the private sector.
It’s kind of a drip, drip, drip,” he said. “People might bring up per diems or health care benefits and I think we need to make it all part of the discussion not one piece at a time but the whole compensation package.”
King added, “The reason were talking to reform commission is to see if this idea is something we could gain some traction on. If nobody’s going to support this concept I don’t know if it makes a lot of sense to put a bill out there for the sake of publicity.”
King said he and Galloway are also promoting expanding the state’s open records law, redistricting reform, and campaign finance reform.
Alison Hawkes can be reached at 717-705-6330 or ahawkes@calkins-media.com