Legislators, governor and commissioners may soon get automatic pay hikes for inflation

Legislators, the governor and his top aides should qualify for automatic pay hikes every two years to make up for inflation unless the 2025 Legislature moves quickly to strike down the plan.

That’s the idea that three members of the Alaska State Officers Compensation Commission tentatively agreed to Wednesday, saying they would meet again in January before taking final action.

The commission is supposed to have five members, but Gov. Mike Dunleavy has refused to fill two positions. This concentrates the power to help set key state salaries in the hands of commission members Jomo Stewart, Larry LeDoux and Lynn Gattis.

Three members constitute a quorum and the three have to be unanimous to take action. They agreed on the need for automatic raises for key state political leaders Wednesday, saying there should be no raises in 2025, but an inflationary increase two years hence.

This is not a regular advisory group. It has real power, which is a function of the way the Legislature designed a system to separate themselves from the sensitive question of setting state salaries for legislators, the governor, etc.

After the commission report goes to the Legislature in January, its findings on automatic raises will become law unless a measure to strike down the report becomes law within 60 days.

There are countless ways of stopping a bill from becoming a law, many of which are never on public display, which is why the commission has clout.

This is the relevant part of the law.

The automatic raises, tied to the Consumer Price Index in Anchorage, will go to legislators, the governor, the lieutenant governor and the principal heads of each department, unless there is a law passed to halt the process.

The commission did not release a proposed draft text of its findings, so the exact language remains in doubt. There is some confusion over whether the commission is saying this is advice to whoever might be on this commission in two years or advice to the Legislature about what it should do.

The commission is not called upon to advise the Legislature on wages, however, but to make a decision on wages that the Legislature can reject.

The minutes of the November meeting say “it was determined that tying wage increases to the CPI is consistent with other industries and avoids the appearance of granting wage increases for political or arbitrary reasons.”

I asked the commission at the meeting to confirm that their report would place the automatic pay increase for inflation in state law as part of their report, but the commission members declined to respond.

If there is merit to raising salaries to match inflation, and I think there is, it should become state law with more public involvement and review than this.

As I wrote here the other day, the commission should be abolished by the Legislature.

The commission destroyed its credibility with the March 2023 coup in which five new members met for 15 minutes and approved big pay raises for legislators, the governor, lieutenant governor and the heads of state agencies.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy, with the cooperation of legislators, subverted the public process in 2023. After that 15-minute meeting in 2023, the commission members did not meet again until last month.

It was the only meeting that the three 2023 appointees of the governor who agreed in advance to put the salary raises into effect ever took part in. They are former commission members Miles Baker, Duff Mitchell and Donald Handeland.

Stewart and LeDoux, who said in 2023 they are blindsided by the plan from the majority, are the two holdovers. They were named to the commission from lists provided by legislative leaders.

Gattis, the third member, was appointed by Dunleavy in October.

I was one of two people who testified at the commission meeting Wednesday. I said that the failure of the governor to fill the commission, leaving two seats vacant, is a serious problem.

I said this key decision regarding the law on state salaries should not be left to three people and a process that involves almost no public participation.

The idea put forward at the meeting that the governor could appoint two more commission members before the next meeting in January, at which time the tentative conclusions will face a final vote, makes no sense to me.

That Dunleavy refuses to fill the commission vacancies is another reason why the commission should be abolished by the Legislature.

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