7.7% pay hike is pushed for Utah's legislators

Utah's 104 part-time legislators should receive a 7.7 percent pay raise so that they earn $140 a day in salary, according to a special compensation commission. However, counting other compensation, legislators would actually make nearly $400 a day.

Lawmakers in the 2008 Legislature can either accept that pay raise, take a smaller raise or take no raise at all. Lawmakers now make $130 a day in salary. The pay raise covers two years, so it would equal a 3.85 percent annual raise. The new salary levels would start in January 2009, after the 2008 legislative elections, when voters can decide if lawmakers are being paid too much — and whether to vote them out of office.

Compared with other part-time state legislatures, Utah's lawmakers rank in the lower half for pay. But like other legislators, they receive other kinds of compensation as well. Utah lawmakers now receive a daily $54 per diem for meals, a $90 a day allotment for hotels — whether legislators stay at home or in a hotel — and 48.5 cents per mile reimbursement for some of their commuting costs.

Not counting their mileage, which varies per legislator, before the 2009 Legislature (assuming the pay hike but no change in hotel reimbursement or per diem), each legislator would get a check from the state for $12,780. Lawmakers are paid before each 45-day general session starts because some are not paid by their employers during the session — and to support their families, they need to be paid up front.

They are paid for each of the 45 days, even though they are not in session Saturdays and Sundays. Legislators also are paid one day a month — April through November — for an interim study day. They also are paid for any special session or veto override days, and for any special meetings, such as those of a task force, for which the Legislative Management Committee approves extra pay days.

Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem, and House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy, receive $3,000 extra each year, and the House and Senate majority and minority leaders also receive an extra $2,000 a year.

For 2006, the only full year of legislative salary data (at a daily salary of $120 a day), the average yearly salary came out to $8,537. But that doesn't include hotel, per diem or mileage.

Taking in all payments except mileage, each legislator's 2009 pre-session check for $12,780 breaks out to $399.37 per workday. If serving in the Legislature were a full-time job paid over all work days throughout a year, a legislator's annual pay would be $103,837.