Pay raise bill would give Healey’s household income a big boost

Attorney General Maura Healey takes questions from reporters at a Tuesday news conference. Healey’s salary would increase nearly $45,000 under the Legislature’s pay raise bill.Associated Press/Steven Senne

Attorney General Maura Healey, whom the Legislature wants to give a huge pay raise, could see her household income increase by $70,000.

That’s because the pay raise plan also includes raises for judges. Healey’s partner, state Appeals Court Justice Gabrielle R. Wolohojian, would see her salary increase from $165,087 to $190,087 under the proposal.

The proposed raise for the attorney general is nearly $45,000: from $130,582 to $175,000.

Healey, however, says she is undecided about whether she will actually accept the raise. Those who have talked to her privately believe Healey — particularly with a potential gubernatorial candidacy on the horizon — will turn it down, as Governor Charlie Baker has said he will do.

Baker has vetoed the pay raise package, but the Legislature likely has the votes to override him.

Healey’s aides confirmed again Wednesday, on the eve of the override vote, that the attorney generalis not taking a position on whether she will take her pay hike. They would not comment on the issue of Wolohojian’s raise.

The salary increases are all part of controversial pay package that House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Stan Rosenberg are pushing through the Legislature for themselves, most of their members, and the state’s constitutional officers.

But they also added judges and other court personnel to the bill, dressing it up so much that its annual cost to taxpayers ballooned to $18 million, with virtually no public input.