Where the governor and Legislature decide to spend money says a lot about their priorities. Gov. Paul LePage’s administration was criticized last week when it was revealed that cabinet members, commissioners and other executive branch employees received large raises. The administration says, with some truth, that comparatively low salaries for top executive branch employees make it hard to recruit good candidates.
Hiring high-quality people for state jobs is a reasonable priority, and the plan for raises was approved by the Legislature last year. But, it means state money wasn’t spent on other things, such as providing services to the elderly and disabled, which the administration also says is a priority.
In the latest round of raises, first reported by the Portland Press Herald, the pay for 11 of 13 commissioners was equalized at a little less than $128,000 per year. Most commissioners were paid just under $109,000 per year before the raises. Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Mary Mayhew was previously paid nearly $116,000 annually. Commissioners and other top executive employees received raises between 7 percent and 20 percent, with an average of almost 10 percent. Tom Desjardins, interim education commissioner, and Corrections Commissioner Joseph Fitzpatrick were not included in the raises.
Last year, many of the same staff got 5 percent raises and boosts in the amount of vacation they receive after a new LePage policy counted relevant work outside state government toward their paid time-off accrual. The average was an extra eight days of vacation.
In neighboring New Hampshire, the DHHS commissioner earns nearly $124,000, and the Department of Public Safety commissioner earns just over $121,000 with others paid about $100,000. Vermont’s commissioners earn from $98,000 to $123,000, according to MPBN.
The price tag of the 49 higher salaries is nearly $440,000, a cost added to the state budget every year going forward.
In a July 21 column in the Portland Press Herald, Rep. Heather Sirocki, R-Scarborough, blasts Democratic lawmakers for buying “a summer place” rather than providing funding to remove people with cognitive disabilities from a waitlist for services. She was referring to the $200,000 in the budget earmarked for the purchase of the Frances Perkins homestead, a National Historic Landmark, in Newcastle. Perkins was Franklin D. Roosevelt’s secretary of labor, the country’s first female cabinet secretary.
That $200,000 could have removed 10 people from a waitlist, Sirocki wrote. By this math, the $440,000 spent on raises could have removed 22 people from the waitlist permanently since the $440,000 is an ongoing expense, while the $200,000 was a one-time expenditure.
The budget for the next two years includes a $16.2 million increase in funds to help clear Department of Health and Human Services waitlists for people with intellectual disabilities and brain injuries. In his budget proposal, LePage included an additional $46.5 million in spending to provide home and community-based services to the elderly and disabled who are on waitlists. Funding for the Drugs for the Elderly program would have been cut to pay for this. He also proposed cutting nearly $15 million in General Assistance funding to provide services to those with developmental disabilities who are waiting for services.
The budget also called for a large income tax cut, which the Legislature pared back.
Removing those in need of medical, therapeutic and support services from long waitlists should be a high priority for the state. That means finding a viable source of ongoing funding to cover the costs. Forgoing tax cuts, commissioner raises and property acquisitions would prove that ending waitlists is truly a priority, not just a political slogan.
