Legislator per diems: pricey perks or legitimate expenses?

In Massachusetts, where thousands of bills are filed in the Legislature annually, the end of the legislative session is when large numbers of unsuccessful bills are sent into oblivion.

The technical term is these bills are put into a “study,” but seldom are they actually studied; they’re tucked away in a committee and all of the bills die when the legislative session ends. Last month, the Joint Committee on Public Service alone did a routine dump of nearly 400 bills relating to public employee retirement, collective bargaining, labor contracts and similar measures involving the Bay State’s public sector.

One bill caught my eye.

The bill, filed by Rep. Ryan C. Fattman (R-Sutton), would have eliminated the sometimes demonized “per diem” allowance for mileage, meals and lodging to which any new Massachusetts legislator would be entitled.

Current state senators and representatives are eligible for such per diems, and these range from $10 to $100 for each day the Legislature is in session, depending on how far away from the Statehouse the legislator lives. Since the Massachusetts Legislature is in formal or informal session for most of the year, this can add up to a tidy sum.

It’s not uncommon for legislators from The Berkshires or the Cape and islands to get up to $5,000, $10,000 or more per year in this extra pay. They are supposed to use this money for meals or housing when they travel to Boston, but nobody ever checks, so these per diem payments are often criticized by folks who don’t enjoy this benefit in their own jobs.

Most states do it

Massachusetts is not alone in this practice, however, as it’s used commonly in most states to try to equalize the financial burden for legislators who sometimes have to commute hundreds of miles to the state capitol.

Not surprisingly, it’s generally the larger states where the per diem is greatest.

Alaska, where air travel is often the only practical means to get around and the weather can be horrendous, legislators get between $238 and $253 extra per day, depending on the time of year. In New Mexico it’s $154 per day, Pennsylvania is $159 and in New York, it’s $171 for a full day and $61 for a half-day.

Conversely, five states offer no per diem at all. Connecticut and Rhode Island are the smallest states to provide no per diem, but other, larger states also do not offer per diems: New Hampshire, New Jersey and Ohio.

Since the per diem rules vary among the 45 states that offer them, it’s difficult to calculate the amounts and compare them fairly, but the average is about $130 extra per legislator for each day the respective legislatures are in session.

What’s perplexing is why Fattman or any other legislator would even bother to file a bill doing away with per diems, except for political purposes. Granted, there’s little accountability on how this money is spent, but, in spite of public opinion, most legislators are honest and they come from all corners of the state.

Those who travel long distances, like the Berkshire delegation, should not be penalized simply because they live 130-plus miles from the Statehouse. A Boston-area legislator can go home for lunch, as well as at the end of each work day, and uses little gas in driving back and forth to Beacon Hill.

Not so for western Massachusetts or Cape legislators. They need to find accommodations in the Boston area and often rack up big bucks for gas and other travel expenses. Without the per diem, their net legislative income would be considerably less than a legislator living in Boston.

Fattman and other legislators should spend their time working on real problems affecting real people, not on something like per diems nearly every other state legislature correctly provides to its members.

Of note

The late Rep. Dennis J. Duffin (D-Lenox), who ably served in the state House of Representatives during most of the 1970s and early 1980s and died in 1994, was an exceptional and influential legislator.

And he liked to sleep in his own bed.

Regardless of the time of day or year or bad weather conditions, Duffin would drive to the Statehouse each morning and return home to Lenox each evening. This practice continued after he was appointed as the director of the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance in 1982.

For those of us who worked in and around state government then and had to travel occasionally to Boston, Duffin was the “go-with” guy, providing rides from The Berkshires to Beacon Hill to anyone who asked.

Posted by Bruce Garlow on December 6, 2012. Filed under Berkshire Beacon Hill Spotlight,Columns,Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry