Projo Politics Blog

Governor Carcieri is getting a 12-percent pay raise.

The raise, his first since he took office in January 2003, will boost his salary by $12,623 to $117,817 a year.

Under state law, the lieutenant governor, secretary of state, general treasurer and attorney general are also entitled at the beginning of each new four-year term to a pay increase equivalent to “the total percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index for all Urban Consumers published by the United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics for the Northeast Region for the four previous fiscal years, but in any event not to exceed twelve percent.”

This automatic pay raise — no vote required — will increase newly reelected Attorney General Patrick Lynch’s pay from $94,121 to $105,416 a year, starting Tuesday. The pay for the state’s newest general officers who will be sworn in Tuesday — incoming Lt. Governor Elizabeth Roberts, Secretary of State Ralph Mollis and Treasurer Frank Caprio — is jumping from $88,584 to $99,214, according to Claudia Haugen, chief of human resources services in the state personnel office.

The raises equate to 3 percent a year.

During the same four-year stretch covered by this once-every-four-years raise, most other state workers got across-the-board raises of up to 4 percent annually. A contract standoff left the workers without raises in 2003, except for the automatic step increases and longevity bonuses they are guaranteed by state law at set points in their state employment. But they got the equivalent of 4 percent in June 2004, 4 percent in June 2005 and 3 percent in June 2006, with the promise of another 3 percent in June.

-- Journal staff writers Katherine Gregg, Scott Mayerowitz, Scott Mackay and Elizabeth Gudrais

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