Amid tough economic times for their constituents and facing a $5.4 billion budget shortfall, eight state lawmakers have said they will return their 2009-11 pay raises to the state, while a dozen more pledged to contribute their $2,530 increases to charity.

But the vast majority won't say whether they plan to accept the boost in pay to $49,943 that kicked in when the new Legislature was inaugurated last week.

Of the 132 lawmakers, only 34 disclosed their intentions to the State Journal, which last month e-mailed them a survey on the matter and followed up last week with telephone calls.

A dozen lawmakers, including Assembly Speaker Mike Sheridan, D-Janesville, and Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker, D-Weston, said they planned to take the pay raise, which amounts to 5.3 percent over two years.

"I don't think my constituents want, or deserve, low-bid representation," Rep. Sondy Pope-Roberts, D-Middleton, wrote in an e-mail explaining why she planned to accept the higher salary.

Two lawmakers said they hadn't made a decision.
Lawmakers haven't had a raise since 2007. Prior to that, they went four years without a raise.

Critics and some lawmakers argue that with a looming budget shortfall that could lead to service cuts or tax increases, and with 65,000 state workers projected to lose jobs this year, lawmakers should also sacrifice — in the form of their pay raises.

"This time we need to send a message, other people are losing their jobs," said Rep. Pat Strachota, R-West Bend, who said she plans to give her salary increase to a local charity.

In a letter to Sheridan and Sen. Fred Risser, D-Madison, who chair the eight-member legislative committee that reviews lawmaker pay, Strachota also last week urged that the committee not raise salaries for the 2011-13 session.

A spokeswoman for Sheridan said Friday that he received the letter late last week and didn't have an immediate response. Risser did not return phone messages.

'Reasonable' pay

But Sen. Bob Jauch, D-Poplar, said the debate over whether a lawmaker should turn back a pay raise misses the point. He said the real question is whether lawmakers are doing their jobs.

"Legislators of both parties work seven days a week, including holidays, often taking calls early in the morning or later at night," Jauch said in an e-mail.

"When constituents tearfully call our homes late at night seeking assistance on personal matters, they are not interested in our salaries or our efforts to make symbolic statements but they do hope we will sincerely lend an ear and a helping hand to their problem."

He declined to say whether he would accept the raise. But he said last year he saved the state $125,000 by not filling two staff positions and not sending out a newsletter to his constituents.

Karl Kurtz, director of the Trust for Representative Democracy at the National Conference of State Legislatures, said Wisconsin lawmakers receive "reasonable compensation" for their workload as a "full-time" Legislature.

Wisconsin is one of 10 states that the NCSL classifies as "full-time" and, by population, the smallest.

The group considers state legislative bodies full-time if lawmakers spend on average at least 80 percent of a 40-hour work week on their jobs, including campaigning. A 2002 survey of Wisconsin lawmakers found they averaged nearly 33 hours of work a week, Kurtz said, just above that threshold.

Including the $88 a day most legislators receive as an allowance for daily expenses, the average state lawmaker earned just over $59,000 last year, according to a 2008 NCSL study. The study assumed lawmakers worked 132 days in Madison.

By comparison, lawmakers in Florida earned an estimated $40,000 in salary and allowances last year, while legislators in California received an estimated $130,000. The NCSL classifies both states' legislatures as full-time.

Saying no isn't easy

Even for those who want to, refusing the raise isn't easy.

Under the state Constitution, legislative pay can't change during a session, except for senators who serve four-year terms.

But lawmakers can have the amount of the raise taken out of each monthly paycheck or cut a check to the state.

When that happens, the money is deposited into the state's general fund, said Rob Marchant, chief Senate clerk.

However, legislators must accept their full salary and pay taxes on it, he said.

Since 1985, legislative pay has been set by the Office of State Employment Relations, with review by an eight-member legislative committee and sometimes the governor.

Every two years the employment relations office makes a salary recommendation, which goes to the legislative committee, which can reject or modify the recommendation. The governor can block any modifications but can be overruled if at least six members of the committee vote to do so.

The process is designed to remove politics from the decision by not forcing lawmakers to vote on their pay raises. But some lawmakers say it's time to ask each elected official to vote on his or her own raise, though no lawmaker has yet to introduce legislation or a resolution to that effect.

The current raise, which the committee approved in November 2007, amounts to an overall increase in state spending of $334,000.

— State Journal reporters Nick Heynen and Dee J. Hall contributed to this report.