Governor’s Budget Message: Cut It Out Batt Has Already Reduced Cabinet Salaries

Republican Gov. Phil Batt worked through Tuesday putting together the final version of his budget message - a hold-the-line spending blueprint inaugurating his campaign to rein in state government.

“I have begun to eliminate unnecessary expenses in the executive branch of government,” Batt said in setting the stage for his presentation today, “and I strongly encourage the Legislature and the Judiciary to do some self-examination.”

But as the state’s first GOP governor in 24 years prepared to detail his plans for a leaner government, the first rift was developing in the nation’s most Republican Legislature over a proposed 3 percent legislative pay raise.

While Batt used his own Cabinet members to set “the example of frugality” by reducing most of their salaries from their predecessors’ levels, Republicans in the House and Senate split over taking the modest pay increase recommended last spring by a special citizens commission.

The proposal would boost the annual legislative salary from $12,000 to $12,360.

House Republicans voted unanimously to reject the pay increase and the $5 boost in the daily expense allowance for lawmakers from outside the Boise area. Democratic leaders in the House agreed.

“With a Republican governor trying to cut spending, it would be hypocritical of us if we didn’t look at our own situation,” House GOP Caucus Chairman John Tippets of Bennington said.

But in a similar closed-door session across the Capitol, Senate Republicans took the exact opposite stand, just as they did four years ago when the issue was a much more controversial 82 percent legislative pay increase.

“It was the general feeling that they accept the pay raise,” Senate Republican Caucus Chairman Sheila Sorensen of Boise said.

She said it was a consensus position among the 27 Senate Republicans although it was not unanimous.

The minimal pay increase recommended this year was the result of the debate that surrounded the 1991 recommendation that raised the annual salary from about $6,600 to $12,000. The overwhelming House rejection of that increase was bottled up in the Senate State Affairs Committee comprised of party leaders.

After that controversy, key lawmakers urged the citizens commission to avoid proposing such enormous pay hikes every decade and instead recommend more frequent and modest increases in an attempt to limit the financial sacrifices many lawmakers must make to serve.

“If we don’t accept this, then probably we ought to look at eliminating the commission,” Sorensen said. “If we don’t accept it, what happens four or six years from now when it’s even bigger.”

Also pending is a proposal to cut the overall $5.5 million legislative budget by 5 percent - $225,000.