Analysis: Legislative perks are easy to grasp

By Len Lazarick
Len@MarylandReporter.com

Forget those pesky Medicaid audits we reported on last week -- $17 million in possible overpayments in a $3 billion budget. Who can get their arms around that? The sums are too large, and the reasons too complex -- “edits” in a 30-year-old software program and understaffing leading to backlogs in the paper claims unit.

But legislative salaries and perks -- that’s something we can easily grasp. Many people in Maryland make more than the $43,500 a year legislators earn -- per capita income in the state in 2007 was $46,471. Many Marylanders make less, such as junior reporters, starting teachers in many counties, correctional officers, social service workers and other state employees.

But few people make that much money in part-time jobs. Maryland has is the second-highest paid part-time legislature out of 40 in the nation.

Some interesting numbers came out as the General Assembly Compensation Commission met for the first time last week. Commissioners are deliberating on what the salaries and perks for the lawmakers elected in 2010 should be.

Maryland legislators haven’t gotten a pay raise since 2006, but in the four years before that they got quite a bump, based on the recommendations of a similar compensation commission in 2002. From 2003 to 2006, legislative pay went up 38 percent, while state employees were getting less than a third of that and personal income in Maryland as a whole was going up 20 percent.

Free lunch -- and dinner

The numbers that really stood out at last week’s meeting of the pay panel was the amount taxpayers spend on lodging and meals for members of the General Assembly.

A majority of the legislature lives less than an hour’s drive from Annapolis, as does a majority of its constituents. Yet the state spends $1.8 million to put them up in Annapolis. The state contracts with seven hotels to put up 60 percent of the 188 legislators for the whole 90 days at $126 a night. That’s $11,340 apiece.

It’s hard to find a room in Annapolis for less than $100 a night. But since the legislature meets Monday night through Friday afternoon for most of the session, most senators and delegates stay in Annapolis just four nights a week. That works out to about $218 a night for actually sleeping in the room, hardly a bargain.

For the first month, except for Monday nights, there’s hardly reason for most legislators to stay overnight, except to go to the many receptions and dinners held in their honor by interest groups and lobbyists.

That’s the other rub. Eight-six percent of legislators -- 161 out of 188 -- claim their full meal per diem. That’s $8 for breakfast, $10 for lunch and $24 per dinner. No receipts are required. Total tab: $439,000 in this year’s session.

Many of them get a complimentary continental breakfast at their hotels and some of them attend the receptions and dinners. (Lobbyists can no longer buy meals for individual legislators, but they can invite the whole General Assembly or entire committees to a pricey restaurant.)

The meals and lodging allowances are not something most private enterprises would allow, especially in tough times, and taxpayers don’t pick up the tab for most state and local workers in this way. State workers buy their own lunches, and many Marylanders commute an hour each way to work.

Talking about meals and hotels when the state faces a $2 billion deficit next year seems kind of petty. But those are the sort of perks that can annoy constituents. No question that most legislators work long hours in the final weeks of the session, so why not rent those hotel rooms for 60 days instead of 90? That would save $600,000.

How about receipts for some of those meals? Cumbersome to be sure, especially when you’re splitting the tab, and lots of paperwork for some poor clerk, probably making less $43,500 per year.

There’s no free lunch, goes the old law of economics -- except when someone else is paying for it. It’s an economics lesson the legislature could learn.