State Lawmakers Get Pay Raises

State Lawmakers Get Pay Raises

While many Rhode Islanders are struggling just to find a job or hold on to the one they have, state lawmakers this month are getting a raise.

This year, the annual salaries for both state reps and senators will increase by 3.4 percent, from $14,018 to $14,495—or double that amount in the case of the House Speaker and Senate President.  

The raise, which is based on the rate of inflation, was not something legislators voted for themselves. Instead, it is mandated by the state constitution, according to Larry Berman, a spokesman for House Speaker Gordon Fox.

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But three state senators say they don’t think they should be receiving extra money during a recession.

So instead, they plan to donate it to local food banks. “In this economy people are suffering and we’ve had to make some tough decisions up here in the General Assembly,” said state Senator James Sheehan, D-North Kingstown (pictured above left). “We’ve had to make some cuts. I think it’s incumbent upon people who want to lead to lead by example.”

Two other senators are also forgoing the raises—Michael Pinga, D-West Warwick (pictured right) and Edward O’Neill, an independent from Lincoln. Pinga said that since the General Assembly was asking everyone else to take a cut, it should too. O’Neill called the raise the last thing that should be happening during a time of budget struggles.

All three said they would support a proposal to eliminate the automatic raises, but they all stressed the difficulty of amending the state constitution.

In the meantime, Pinga went farther than the two other senators in blasting his fellow lawmakers for not having “enough good sense” to forego their raises. “I really don’t have much to say to them,” Pinga said. “I think the voters will have something to say to them come November. It just tells you the kind of people that are up there.”

And he didn’t seem too worried about how other senators—especially the leadership—might think about his criticism. “I’m not scared of Senate leadership,” Pinga said. “Senate leadership is the problem.”

A spokesman for Senate President M. Teresa Pavia Weed could not be reached for comment yesterday.