No legislative pay raise this session
The final version of a bill to finance state government operations will not include pay increases for Minnesota legislators.
House and Senate negotiators wrapped up work on the bill today, after dropping Senate language that called for the salary increases. The House had not passed a similar provision.
Senate Majority leader Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, said the bill does include the recommendations from a nonpartisan compensation council to adjust the salaries of the governor and agency commissioners, but there was no money appropriated.
"So if commissioners are going to get raises, it will have to come out of the existing budgets of the departments," Bakk said. "There's not new money for it. In the state government finance bill, there was about $2.5 million for that provision in order to pay for the additional compensation, and that was taken out."
The Senate is poised to act on a proposed constitutional amendment that would ask voters to decide in 2016 whether to create an independent council to address lawmaker pay. The House passed that bill Friday.
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