Vermont lawmakers have shelved a plan to increase their own salaries by about 42 percent as they struggle to address substantial statewide property tax increases.
The legislature passed a bill last year that would have doubled their salaries over four years and made them eligible for state health care benefits, but Gov. Phil Scott vetoed it. Senators returned this year with a more modest proposal that got only tepid support in the House.
“What I heard was, ‘We’re raising property taxes over 20 percent. How can we then also justify increasing our pay?’” Sen. Alison Clarkson (D-Windsor) told Seven Days on Thursday.
Property taxes are projected to rise an average of 20 percent due to sharply higher school spending and new pupil-weighting formulas unless school districts trim their budgets or lawmakers find other solutions.
Initially, S.224 would have increased lawmakers’ meager salaries next year by about 74 percent. Most lawmakers make just over $15,000 plus expenses for a typical 18-week session between January and mid-May.
The bill would not have given lawmakers state health coverage. Leaders’ pay was set to go up 66 percent; compensation for committee chairs, who have significantly higher workloads, would have gone up 106 percent.
That didn’t fly with Senate leadership, so the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Ruth Hardy (D-Addison) pared it back. She killed the bump for committee chairs and made other changes that lowered the proposed increases to 42 percent for both the leaders and rank-and-file members. But the House shot down that version even before it got out of the Senate Government Operations Committee, which Hardy chairs.
“When bills I care about don’t move forward, I’m disappointed,” Hardy said on Thursday.
Sen. Becca White (D-Windsor), who works part time as a cashier to augment her legislative pay, said House members told her the pay bump of about $6,000 wasn’t worth the political blowback.
“The juice wasn’t worth the squeeze for some,” White said.
She worries that without better salaries and benefits, young people will remain unable to afford to serve, perpetuating the problem of the General Assembly not reflecting the population it represents.
The financial pressures of serving in the legislature, along with the stress of trying to pass laws during a pandemic, led to a historic turnover over the last biennium, with a third of 180 members of the General Assembly choosing not to run again. Some legislators have said boosting compensation and benefits was the best way to reverse that trend and foster a younger, more diverse legislature.
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