TOPEKA — A bipartisan commission led by former state lawmakers Thursday endorsed recommendations raising the base salary of House and Senate members to $43,000 per year and establishing a method of indexing annual adjustments linked to a three-year rolling average of growth in overall Kansas wages.
The commission was given authority by the 2023 Legislature to study compensation provided the state’s 165 lawmakers. The group’s proposal will be subject to public comment prior to a final vote of the commission Oct. 19 at the Capitol. Approval would forward the report to the 2024 Legislature, which could vote to block the plan or allow it to be implemented. Unlike a regular bill, Gov. Laura Kelly has no role in the decision.
“This gets the Legislature on a better course,” said former Rep. Mark Kahrs, a Republican. “We’ve reached a very good product. I’m really proud of the work we’ve done here. We represent a pretty broad political spectrum, yet we’ve worked well together.”
Former Democratic Rep. Ed McKechnie said the package forged by the commission was the product of efficient deliberations.
“Almost gives myself goose bumps,” McKechnie said. “This is how the republic was supposed to work. Commission is formed. We come in. We do our work. We go home.”
Former GOP Rep. Mark Hutton, who chaired the commission, said the core of the proposal was the move to set a base annual salary for each legislator at $43,000. It would be equivalent to one-fourth of the salary paid a member of the U.S. Congress, but would represent a 50% raise for Kansas legislators.
Hutton said the proposed salary figure was drawn from a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report of average annual wages among Kansans employed in the private and public sectors. It assumed a legislator was dedicated to the job 100% of the time for five months during the legislative session from January to May. It also assumed legislators were committed to state government duties 50% of the time in the other seven months.
The workload equivalent to 8.5 months, accounting for roughly 70% of the year, helped establish the $43,000 base salary.
Hutton suggested the commission tie annual adjustments in legislator salary to the latest yearly percentage increase or decrease in wages earned among Kansas workers. Several commissioners sought to avoid situations in which legislator pay suddenly surged or had to be cut due to economic forces.
“If the rest of Kansas takes a hit,” Hutton argued, “I don’t see any reason that a legislator shouldn’t take a hit.”
Instead, the commission decided to rely on a three-year rolling average of the statewide increase in wages reported by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. For example, the average salary earned by Kansans in 2021, 2022 and 2023 would be the basis for determining the percentage raise for legislators in 2025.
The commission said the per diem daily allowance paid legislators for lodging, meals and incidental expenditures should be unchanged at $157 per day. The per diem is available to legislators during the annual session, on special session days and for interim committee meetings.
Former Sen. Tom Hawk, a Democrat, said it was important to set a salary and calculate raises in a way viewed as fair by legislators and taxpayers.
“One of our side tasks is making sure the public thinks we did a solid job of looking at this,” Hawk said.
Commissioners included a strategy for providing salary premiums to legislative leaders of the House and Senate. The base salary of the House speaker and Senate president would be bumped 64% to $68,680. Legislators in 10 other leadership posts would earn premiums ranging from 33% to 58% of base salary.
The commission recommended members of the Legislature not receive a windfall from annual raises in salary when determining benefits for those enrolled in the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System.
A plan to create a stipend for legislators with large geographic districts was discarded, despite wide variation in square miles served by House and Senate members. The idea was to provide 22% of representatives and 35% of senators a boost in annual compensation ranging from as little as $15 to as much as $3,750 per year. Overall, the provision rejected by the commission would have cost the state about $33,000 each year.
Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and Twitter.
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