Editorial: Put per diem reform on agenda

The Minnesota Court of Appeals this week concurred with a district court: It is constitutionally permissible for Minnesota legislators to give themselves an immediate, indirect pay raise. They can boost their "per diem," or daily expense payments, and avoid the one-term delay that the state Constitution requires before salary increases can go into effect.

That's likely not the final legal word in the latest partisan tussle over Minnesota legislative pay. The GOP-leaning group who brought the legal challenge to the 2007 per diem increases instigated by DFLers says it plans to appeal this week's ruling to the Minnesota Supreme Court.

But on this matter, the court of public opinion ought to be the ultimate decider. In that court, the way in which the Legislature compensates itself has long been judged antiquated, obtuse and prone to mischief. Compensation reform for elected officials belongs on the 2010 Legislature's agenda.

"Per diem" allowances to cover work-related expenses went out with manual typewriters in most enterprises. Reimbursement for documented expenses, up to a reasonable cap, is the modern private-sector standard. That more transparent and accountable expense system ought to be adopted by the Legislature as well.

So should another compensation practice -- regular salary increases, pegged to increases in the cost of living.

Legislators haven't had a salary increase since 1999. They are paid $31,140 a year, not counting per diem, mileage and a housing allowance for members from outstate Minnesota. For a number of legislators, those allowances add up to more than their salaries -- a situation that looks like a clumsy attempt to conceal total compensation.

The governor's salary, $120,303, has been constant since 1998. It would be $157,000 if it had risen with the cost of living in this decade.

But it's less admirable when their self-denial also deprives career civil servants of fair compensation, or discourages people of lesser means from seeking elective office, or hastens the departure of talented people from public service. Those have been the consequences of the salary freeze that Gov. Tim Pawlenty and legislators have imposed on their positions in this decade. Many state government salaries -- perhaps too many -- are pegged to the governor's.

"If elected public servants aren't fairly compensated, we may not be able to attract highly qualified candidates who are broadly representative of Minnesota's citizenry," warned the state Compensation Council, an advisory group headed by Lilydale Mayor Tom Swain. For 10 years, the bipartisan council's consistent calls for pay raises have been ignored.