Brief ⁽¹⁾

Sub. for SB 192 creates a Legislative and Executive Officer Compensation Commission to set the pay for state legislators and to recommend the amount of pay for certain other state officers. The Commission also may provide for retirement benefits for state officers. The bill also amends the state ethics laws.

The bill creates the Legislative and Executive Officer Compensation Commission to make a study of the compensation of state officers including provisions for retirement benefits, formulas to determine those benefits, eligibility requirements, and participation and waiting periods. State officers are defined as members of the Legislature and executive officers of state government; executive officers are the statewide elected officers.

The bill authorizes the Commission to fix the amount of compensation of legislators which would become effective on July 1, 2001. The bill requires the Commission to submit a report to the Legislative Coordinating Council and the Governor by June 15, 2001. The report would have to specify the amount of compensation fixed for members of the Legislature and recommendations for the amount of compensation for the executive officers by June 15, 2001. The bill allows any state officer to decline any increase in compensation fixed by the Commission.

The Commission would consist of nine members appointed on or before May 1, 2001, by the President of the Senate, Minority Leader of the Senate, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General, State Treasurer, and Insurance Commissioner. Under the bill, the expiration of terms for members of the Commission would be June 30, 2002. The bill requires appointment of a Commission in the year 2008 and every seven years thereafter.

The bill updates the legislative compensation statute to reflect the current compensation for legislators and makes legislators' pay subject to a different amount set by the Commission. Under the bill, increases in compensation for members of the Legislature also would be tied to increases in compensation for persons in the classified service, which is the total of the average of step movement increases under current law and the average percentage increases of a cost-of-living adjustment to the pay plan.

Background

The House Committee on Ethics and Elections substituted the provisions of Sub. for HB 2490, as amended by the House Committee of the Whole, dealing with compensation for members of the Legislature and officers of the Executive Branch of state government.

1. *Supplemental notes are prepared by the Legislative Research Department and do not express legislative intent. The supplemental note and fiscal note for this bill may be accessed on the Internet at http://www.ink.org/public/legislative/fulltext.cgi