Pay Raises Are Coming to the State House

Photo via masshighered on Flickr/Creative Commons

Consider this a helping of Thanksgiving news dump leftovers.

You may have missed it, but House Speaker Bob DeLeo announced the day before the holiday that staffers at the State House are set to receive a pay bump amounting to around $1.3 million.

The raise is a cost of living increase of about 6 percent for employees working in the House of Representatives (of which there are 468), DeLeo’s office said Wednesday. The last such pay increase came in 2014.

“House of Representatives employees received salary adjustments based on a two-year annual 3% Cost-of-Living-Adjustment factor. The adjustments will be supported by existing appropriations,” says spokesman Whitney Ferguson, in a statement to the State House News Service.

DeLeo and other lawmakers will not be paid more.

The bump comes after the state has made cuts and enticed government employees to leave their posts with buyouts as Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration seeks to close a budget gap of nearly $300 million.

The Herald found reaction to the announcement to be mixed.

Chip Faulkner of Citizens for Limited Taxation says a pay bump is “not right in this climate,” while Noah Berger of the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center says “paying people a reasonable salary is important to attract good people to do important work.”

Last year, City Councilors voted to increase their own pay after a long and uncomfortable debate. Over at the MBTA, leadership has begun discussing the possibility of increasing salaries as a way to recruit talent for top positions.