Legislative leaders quietly handed out pay raises to their staff last week, despite a looming budget crunch that has prompted Governor Deval Patrick to freeze pay raises for low-wage human services workers and weigh a new round of spending cuts.
House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo granted 3 percent raises to all 460 House employees for a total cost of $764,000, and Senate President Therese Murray gave 3 percent raises to a small handful of her direct staff. Those salary increases followed a 3 percent bump that Patrick gave to hundreds of non-union managers in July at a total cost of $10 million.
Comments
What financial crisis? It's all pigs in clover up on Bacon Hill.
It has been at least 4 years since these workers have had a raise, doing a job most of us would never do. Time for the haters to get off the soap boxes... Isn't the air getting a little thin up there folks?
Merrimackfly, I think you confused the state house workers that received a raise with the 29,000 HHS workers that did not.
"The 29,000 workers, who care for the homeless and developmentally disabled, had already begun to protest at the State House on Monday when they learned that legislative staff members had been granted the 3 percent hike.
The workers earn $25,000 a year, on average, and have gone without an increase since 2008."
As you can see from the quote the citizen making barely enough to survive did not get the raise. Those that work for the greedy pigs in the state house did get the raise.
To the gluttonous pigs in the state house, STOP giving away my money and country. I want to remind people that real revolutions began with this type of disgusting behavior being exhibited by our elected officials.
TERM LIMITS NOW!!
"a job most of us would never do"? Please explain what they do that's so terrible. I'm very curious.
This shows we do not need any tax increases since we have plenty of money. legislative employees should be lucky to even have a job and fringe benefirts when many MA residents are still unemployed.
shame on them.
Ok, less than 1% per year since last raise. But with Reps increasingly unopposed, year after year, and the Election for Life mentality of our legislature, staffers' perks and pensions loom on the horizon. Exactly how many staffers are there per legislator, and what are the pension obligations to the taxpayer?? Could each legislator CUT ONE position in face of the declining tax revenues and the onerous health care insurance plan (Connector,etc) so vaunted by the Administration yet approaching >40% budget?...oh wait, this is Massachusetts little brother to California, raise a tax instead.
How about instead of a three percent raise, they get two and the health workers get what is saved there...which would probably be about two for them too...wait, that makes sense...it will never happen...
“Why are the lowest-paid people taking it on the chin?” Because you're not connected! While a 3% raise, the first since 2008, doesn't seem like a big deal, it's the timing that reinforces the public's belief in their "leaders" having a tin ear. Try explaining a raise to someone who's been out of work for years. They just don't care about their constituents. Here's to the Globe continuing to shine a light on the shenanigans of state government.
What spending cuts--the gov is weighing tax INCREASES !! Get wise MA--we've GOT to STOP sending the same-old, insane-old back to office---duh.
At last I'm able to post. What bothers me even more is that these aid workers are getting such a miserable wage to begin with. How can they survive? And look at the important work they are doing, helping these poor unfortunates. Where is the State's sense of values.
Another message related to posting. The London Times allows the reader to post comments too but also allows time after posting to edit the comment. Good idea for the Globe to adopt.