PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Asserting that no vote is required, General Assembly leaders paved the way Wednesday for the July payment of 2.5 percent raises to all of their staffers, despite House Minority Leader Robert Watson's observations about economic realities outside the State House.

No one watching the televised meeting of the Joint Committee on Legislative Services would have guessed this was the likely outcome.

But when it was over, Marisa White, business director for the General Assembly, said that she believed the discussion centered on a long-held policy by which the legislature automatically extends to its own staffers the same raises given other non-union workers across government who are scheduled to receive the same 2.5 percent raises that most of the state's unionized workers won in contracts hammered out last year.

White said the estimated $400,800 cost of the raises is already built into the General Assembly's proposed budget.

Legislative spending has already grown from $25.8 million in Fiscal Year 2004 to $33.8 million last year, to $34.9 million this year - after a mid-year reduction in planned spending. It is projected to reach $36.5 million next year.

When asked if he believed the raises required a vote, House Speaker William J. Murphy - who chairs the JCLS - said it did not.

Others on the panel include Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed, D-Newport, House Majority Leader Gordon D. Fox, D-Providence, and the Republican leaders of the House and Senate, Watson, R-East Greenwich and Dennis Algiere, R-Westerly.

If the executive and judicial branches fail "to hold the line'' on cost-of-living increases, "maybe it's our job to lead,'' said Watson, after repeating several of the same concerns he raised in fall 2008 about raising legislative employee's pay when the state's unemployment rate is among the highest in the nation -- now at 10.5 percent.

The raises would kick in at the same time as the next bump in health insurance costs for state workers who, depending on how much they earn, currently pay between 8 percent of the premiums, which equates to $53.22 every two weeks, and 25 percent ($166.32 biweekly) for family coverage.

Under the new rate schedule, they will be required to pay between 13.5 percent ($93.40 biweekly) and 25 percent ($172.95 biweekly) for the same coverage. The higher amount is reserved for people making more than $90,000 annually.