What a mess South Carolina lawmakers created when they tried, with little public debate, to raise their own pay by a whopping 80% this past legislative session.
The proposal came late in the legislative session out of nowhere, like a bad karaoke singer at a wedding. But soon a majority of legislators were crooning from the same page.
Lawmakers voted to include a $1,500 monthly raise — $18,000 annually — for themselves in the state budget.
Nice trick, eh? When, dear reader, was the last time you gave yourself an 80% pay raise?
Granted, lawmakers haven’t seen a pay rise since the 1990s, but a sudden, unexpected and excessive boost of 80% in one year is, if not obscene, at least unseemly.
It makes lawmakers appear greedy, self-serving and callously indifferent to the struggles many South Carolinians face in today’s chaotic economy.
At a time of so much cynicism about government and other public institutions, South Carolina lawmakers shouldn’t be promoting mistrust.
It’s obviously hypocritical for legislators, so many of whom call themselves “conservative,” to be so generous to themselves with the taxpayer’s dollar while being stingy with programs like the proposed Medicaid expansion for the struggling and vulnerable in South Carolina.
State lawmakers, considered part-time workers, also allow themselves health and life insurance benefits that are harder to access for many other part-time state workers.
Karma happens
But that’s just the beginning of the story. In the wake of the pay raise, along came karma in the form of the state Supreme Court. Smelling a rat, the court suspended the $1,500 monthly raise legislators gave themselves.
Worse for legislators, the court also halted the $1,000 lawmakers have been receiving each month since 1995 through so-called “in-district compensation,” as the SC Daily Gazette’s Skylar Laird recently reported.
The bottom line: Instead of a $18,000 annual pay raise, lawmakers could get a $12,000 annual pay cut.
The state Supreme Court’s actions were prompted by a request from state Sen. Wes Climer, a Rock Hill Republican who challenged the pay increase and must be rather unpopular at legislative parties right now.
That $12,000 reduction, however, may be only temporary, lasting a few months. What happens next depends on what the state Supreme Court decides.
Yes, it’s all a bit hard to keep up with, so let’s cut to the chase with two important points:
• A proposed pay raise for lawmakers should have gone through a committee process that would have allowed for public input and flagged constitutional issues, as Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey said in Laird’s article.
• In addition, a pay increase ideally should be incremental, growing by a few percentage points each year — in the same way lawmakers rightfully raise, for instance, teacher salaries.
That’s how most of the real world operates. If you work your butt off, maybe you get an annual raise of a few percentage points, maybe not.
A modest increase
Lawmakers do deserve modest pay increases over time, but not an 80% boost in one fell swoop. Also, lawmakers should not shut out the public on such important issues.
South Carolina might also follow the lead of 21 other states that appoint independent commissions to recommend salaries. The process should always be transparent.
Legislators, as part-time workers, generally spend about five months, three days a week, in session in Columbia.
For that, they receive an annual salary of $10,400 and stipends for food and lodging during the session, which are currently $240 per day.
Plus, lawmakers get $1,000 a month for “in-district expenses.” That money can be used for almost anything, so it seems fair to consider that as part of their total salary. That’s
the money that has been temporarily halted by the state Supreme Court — along with the $1,500 monthly raise.
By the way, for those who want to check my math, I arrived at the 80% figure simply by adding legislators’ two sources of wages — their salaries plus in-district expense money. I excluded per-diem funds, which can vary and are used directly for legislators’ expenses while in Columbia.
The $18,000 increase therefore would amount to slightly more than an 80% pay raise.
This is not the first time state leaders have supported outsized pay increases for state officials.
Last year, a state commission (dominated by legislators) approved huge pay increases (as high as $58,000) for seven agency heads. In 2022, that state commission doubled the salaries of the state attorney general and state education superintendent while handing out big raises to other statewide elected officials.
To be fair, a modest and incremental pay raise for legislators could have a beneficial effect, leading to a more diverse legislative body in Columbia. Right now, the General Assembly is dominated by male lawyers, male business owners and male retirees who, many would argue, create state policy beneficial to male lawyers, male business owners and male retirees.
Meanwhile, the concerns of mothers and women in general are marginalized in Columbia.
Reasonable wage increases over time could result in a richer policy conversation in Columbia and perhaps even nudge the South Carolina General Assembly toward the mainstream of American politics.
Paul Hyde is a longtime journalist and teacher in the Upstate. He worked 18 years for the Greenville News as a columnist, editorial writer, education reporter and arts writer. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Clemson and Harvard universities. He has written for the Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning News and USA Today, among other publications. He currently is a regular contributor to the Greenville Journal, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Classical Voice North America.
