Galvin’s pay raise defense leaves out key details
By Canton CitizenDear Editor:
In Representative Galvin’s letter to the editor in last week’s Canton Citizen, he makes a good argument from his perspective concerning the difficulty in setting legislative pay increases. But I think he protests too much.
His omissions in his arguments stand out like a sore thumb. One simply has to search Ballotpedia.org to obtain a listing of state legislative salaries across the country for comparison purposes. In New England we find that Connecticut’s salary is $28,000, Rhode Island’s is $15,444, Maine’s is $24,056 for two sessions, Vermont’s is $693.79 per week during a legislative session, and New Hampshire’s is $200 for two years. Massachusetts legislators, meanwhile, have a current base pay of $62,547 — and that is before taking into account the increased stipends for those who chair a committee or serve in leadership positions.
We also have to question the timing and filing of the bill for these raises. Why did the legislative leadership call for the vote in January? Could it be that this was a strategic move to avoid a vote prior to the last election and two full years before the next election? Why were the legislature’s stipends included in the same bill as the judiciary? I can answer the second question by quoting the article from February 2 in the Boston Globe. In that article, Frank Phillips said, “Putting the judicial raises into the bill creates serious legal hurdles to any efforts to place the pay issue before the voters on the 2018 ballot. The state constitution bars referendums on judicial pay.”
Just as recently, the speaker of the House mentioned he would not rule out tax increases for the coming year. Remember, these were the same people who said the state couldn’t afford the sales tax holiday last year because it was too expensive.
Do our elected officials really believe that we can’t see where their first priorities lie? It’s time for voters to wake up and stop being taken advantage of.
Tom Chamberlain
Short URL: https://www.thecantoncitizen.com/?p=35563
Posted by Canton Citizen
on Feb 24 2017. Filed under From One Citizen to Another, Opinion.
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