EXPENSE ALLOWANCE FOR LEGISLATORS NEEDS TO BE INCREASED

Expense allowance for legislators needs to be increased

By wide majorities, both houses of the Missouri General Assembly this past week rejected the recommendations of the Commission on the Compensation of Elected Officials to enact huge increases in the pay for lawmakers and judges. This the solons had to do prior to yesterday in order for the proposed raises not to go into effect automatically.

Such is the convoluted mechanism established by a constitutional amendment passed by the voters in November 1994. This entire episode, then, has been a cautionary tale in the business of voter approval of ballot issues that may sound good at first. All such measures deserve very close scrutiny. This newspaper urged voter rejection of the proposal back in 1994 and can now be seen by most Missourians to have been vindicated. It is virtually certain that most Missourians who voted on it didn't know that the proposals of an unelected commission would become law automatically unless affirmatively rejected by a vote of both houses prior to Feb. 1.

Other opponents are vindicated, as well. Indeed, this includes the elected leaders of both the Democratic and Republican caucuses of the Missouri Senate. In testimony last fall before the commission, both then-President Pro Tem Jim Mathewson, D-Sedalia, and then-Minority Leader Franc Flotron, R-St. Louis, sounded a common theme: Don't recommend any pay increase for lawmakers; if the commission must do anything, it should recommend a reasonable increase in lawmakers' per diem reimbursement for working days in the capital.

That per diem stands at $35, an amount last changed in 1977 and today, on its face, a ridiculously low figure. While Missourians don't want to see full-time, professional lawmakers, it is wholly unreasonable to expect citizens to undertake the demands of being away from home and family for four and a half months while actually losing money in the process. By comparison, Illinois lawmakers get $82. The Internal Revenue Service allows $86 per day for federal employees traveling to Jefferson City for official business. Missouri is one of the lowest states in terms of per diem limits. Any reasonable proposal to increase this figure can and should get the approval of lawmakers in the ordinary course of this session, leaving aside the commission entirely. One such meritorious proposal provides for an increase in this figure to 80 percent of the federal amount, or about $70, perhaps tied to an annual or biennial cost-of-living adjustment.

One more point on this whole mess: Lawmakers should get busy and adopt the Flotron's proposal and pass a resolution proposing a constitutional amendment repealing the entire commission. Then submit it to voters to see whether they might not want to undo their constitutional handiwork of three years ago. Here's a bet that voters, chastened by this experience, would jump at the chance to put this commission out of its misery and ring down the curtain on a bizarre chapter in the history of state government.