Governor cuts staff

Several lobbyists and lawmakers noted during the January/February general session that Huntsman's staff had considerably less government experience than did Walker's top aides, many of whom also served in Leavitt's office or in other government positions over the past decade or more.

And several of Huntsman's top aides came into state government at the same pay as what Walker's veterans were making when they left.

Huntsman said government experience alone shouldn't be a determining factor in pay scale. "Government service is not the same as private service," the governor said. "And some people took significant pay cuts to come to work for me — like Chris and Jason — they made much more in their private sector pay. I brought them in at the same pay (as the departing government veterans.) I thought that was a fair pay scale."

Huntsman himself makes the same salary as Walker, $101,600. The amount is set by the Legislature.

Huntsman has three top aides who make more money than he does. Kikuchi, his spokeswoman, whose job also includes overseeing public information officers throughout state government, makes only $678 a year less than the governor.

Walker also had three aides who made more money than she did.

But don't feel too bad for the governors; both are multimillionaires through family businesses. And governors get a free residence, a food and clothing allowance, free transportation and many other financial perks.

Huntsman has said he will not accept a pay raise this year, even should the Legislature authorize one. Lawmakers almost did. The executive pay bill failed literally the last minute of the 2005 Legislature when an amended version failed to make it back to the House from the Senate before the required adjournment deadline.

The bill would have raised the governor's pay to $106,200, a 4.3 percent increase. But the bill also would have tied the lieutenant governor's pay to 95 percent of the governor's, and so Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert's pay would have jumped from $79,000 to $100,890 a year, a $21,890 increase and a whopping 21.7 percent pay hike.

The bill also proposed to increase the pay ranges for top state executives by a little more than 4 percent. Some of Huntsman's top aides could have seen pay hikes as a result.

Huntsman will call a mid-April special legislative session, mainly to settle how Utah will deal with President Bush's No Child Left Behind program that mandates many school provisions.

But the governor said Thursday night he will not put pay raises for himself or other constitutional officers (lieutenant governor, attorney general, treasurer and auditor) on the session's agenda. "They won't be there."

He may, however, place on the call the 4 percent increases in pay scales for top executives, such as department heads, he said.

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Contributing: Lee Davidson E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com