After three decades, should FL legislators — even millionaire lawmakers — get a raise or not?

Back in 1985, Florida lawmakers set salaries for Senate and House members at $18,000 and provided for annual increases. But that fell by the wayside: the annual salary of $29,697 hasn’t changed in more than a decade, with exceptions for the Senate President and House Speaker.

Nowadays, about half the House and Senate lawmakers in Florida have a net worth exceeding $1 million and higher, according to the most recent financial disclosures in the Legislature, raising questions about whether there’s enough incentive for certain lawmakers to move the current salary structure. However, the paltry salary can limit working-class Floridians from participating in the Legislature.

How the lawmaker salary situation will play out in 2024 is still not clear.

What if millionaire lawmakers decide not to take a salary at all? Should all lawmakers, regardless of net worth, get a salary hike? And how big of a spike would it be after 30 years?

Keep in mind that Florida lawmakers work part-time in a 60-day session that involves crafting the state budget and pursuing legislation. Also, legislative committee meetings are spread over several months and special sessions can occur throughout the year, if necessary.

As the 160 members of the Legislature return to Tallahassee on Tuesday for the opening of the 2024 legislative session, it’s an issue that some lawmakers think is worthy of reconsideration, in part because it limits the number and type of people who can even consider serving in the body.

“You get a very skewed sort of sample of the population,” says Peverill Squire, a professor of political science at the University of Missouri.

What about other states?

Although Florida officials say that the state has a part-time Legislature, the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCLS) actually says that the Sunshine State has a “hybrid” Legislature. “Legislatures in these states typically say that they spend more than two-thirds of a full-time job being legislators,” writes the NCLS, adding that “it’s usually not enough to allow them to make a living without having other sources of income.”

Annual pay for other state legislatures varies widely, depending on if they are classified as full, part-time or hybrid. New York and California lawmakers work fulltime and make the most money, at $142,000 and $122,694, respectfully, according to the NCLS.

The push to raise New Jersey lawmakers’ salaries would make them the highest-paid part-time legislators in the nation, according to the New Jersey Monitor, an affiliate of the States Newsroom, which includes the Florida Phoenix. The Monitor stated that: “If the proposed pay hike — from $49,000 to $82,000 — wins passage from the Legislature, only four other states would pay their lawmakers more. It would be the first salary hike for the Legislature since 2002.”

Other state legislatures make much less, such as Nebraska ($12,000) or New Hampshire (lawmakers there make just $100 annually). The NCLS said the average base salary in 2020 was $43,494.

That’s why Orange County Democrat Bruce Antone has filed legislation (HB 1121) that calls for a nine-member council selected by elected officials that would conduct a comprehensive study of the compensation, salary and retirement benefits of the members of the Legislature and make subsequent recommendations regarding by January of 2025. Palm Beach County Democrat Lori Berman has filed a similar proposal (SB 1248) in the Senate.

“I had a bill last year to raise the salary to have some kind of study and they [Republicans] were like, “Look man. I had to shut down my law practice and go join with somebody else because I cannot make it at $29,697,” Antone told the Phoenix. “I know that it’s an honor and a privilege to serve in the Legislature. This is a citizen’s legislature – but again, times have changed. When I started as an aide in 1992, the salary for a legislator was $22,300. It’s now $29,000. Times have changed, and I just think that you have to compensate folks accordingly.”

The issue hasn’t moved in part because it’s considered bad politics for elected officials to advocate for a pay raise. But what state lawmakers say publicly and how they feel about the issue of added compensation privately are two different things.

We need a pay raise

“This issue does have bipartisan support, and almost all the Republicans that I talked to about this, I think all of them say this, ‘yes, we need a pay raise. It’s a great idea….and I would never vote for it,’” says North Fort Myers House Republican Spencer Roach.

Roach says he’s spoken with Antone and shares his enthusiasm for having the Legislature take a deeper look into higher salaries. It’s not a new issue for him. In August of 2021, Roach wrote to then-House Speaker Chris Sprowls about authorizing the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability (OPPAGA) to conduct a study to analyze and report back on annual pay rates for the governor, each statewide Cabinet officer, House and Senate members as well as the legislative staff. He says he never heard back.

Former St. Petersburg mayor and Democratic House member Rick Kriseman told the Phoenix a year ago that the relative low salary for lawmakers limits how many middle-class Floridians can afford to work in the so-called “citizen’s legislature.”

“All it does is encourage two types of elected officials: those who are wealthy, and those who are retired,” he says.

In fact, the numbers show the story when lawmakers have to file financial disclosure data related to net worth. It’s true that many Florida lawmakers are wealthy and others are also retired.

In the Florida Senate, 22 of the 40 lawmakers recently posted a net worth of at least $1 million and higher, with some as high as $60 million and $35 million, according to what’s called a Form 6, a document of financial interests.

In addition, some senators have negative net worth, in part because of law school loans and other education loans, among other issues. Also, some lawmakers may not have provided the figures correctly, related to assets and liabilities. The Florida Phoenix reviewed all recent Form 6 documents related to net worth.

In the state House, 60 lawmakers posted a net worth of at least $1 million. Of the 120 lawmakers in the House, a few did not record recent data. Others also posted $0, or negative net worth, in part because of hefty student loans and other reasons.

As to the millionaire lawmakers, some may be hesitant to look at raising their own lawmaker salaries because they don’t need the money.

That then raises a separate question of whether the current Legislature is reflective of the 22 million people it serves and can relate to their issues.

Certain types of people can truly serve

Former Hillsborough County House Democrat Andrew Learned says that the requirements of serving in the Legislature and doing it well means that only certain types of people can truly serve: the self-employed, the independently wealthy, and/or attorneys who can control their schedule with clients and in the courtroom.

In Learned’s case, he says that it was the fact that he owned his own business (a neighborhood learning center) that allowed himself the flexibility to serve in the capital.

“Does the legislation look different when everybody in the Legislature is essentially an employer and is not worried about paid family leave?” asks Learned. “Yes, right? Yes, we need more working people in there, and that means Floridians need to start electing people who match their values a little bit better.”

University of Missouri political science professor Squire studies state legislatures around the country. He says it’s surprising to him how little Florida lawmakers make, considering the size of the state’s population and budget.

“You’re asking people to make serious policy decisions, giving them relatively little time to do it, and not rewarding them to give the time and effort that’s necessary to solve some really serious problems,” he says. “The [property] insurance problem is a major political issue and that’s a very difficult set of policies to work through and you’re paying people a pittance to try to do it.”

The issue is so sensitive that even some former lawmakers are hesitant to speak out on it.

“I will leave the legislative salary discussion up to the Florida Legislature,” former Clearwater area Republican House member Chris Latvala told the Phoenix. “I can tell you that being a Florida legislator is a full-time job with responsibilities throughout the year, not just when the Legislature is in session. It was a very rewarding experience, and it was an honor to serve and now it is someone else’s turn to help make those decisions.”

Latvala now serves on the Pinellas County Commission, where board members make over $112,000 annually.

Antone has served at three different times in the Florida House: from 2002-2006, 2012-2020, and was reelected in 2022. He recalls a verbal scolding he received back in 2005 when he initially filed legislation that would raise the salary of state lawmakers to $50,000, with additional increases built in.

“The Speaker at the time [Allan Bense] called me up at the dais and he said, ‘I think it’s a great bill, but I’m not going to ask my members to vote on it,’” Antone recalls. “And back then, the Orlando Sentinel tore my behind because they said that I was just trying to raise the salary.”

But Roach says that he rarely if ever gets any negative feedback when he discusses the idea with his constituents.

“I represent a deep, deep red county, one of the reddest counties if not the reddest in the state and my Republican constituents, and when I explain this to them, I very rarely have anyone in the crowd that thinks that the Legislature should not get a pay raise,” he says. “Even in bright red Republican circles. So I think that the fears of my colleagues of being summarily voted out of office for even bringing this idea, I think that’s sort of a political urban legend myth.”

“You get what you paid for, right?” he surmises.