Ohio Senate again passes pay-raise resolution

By Marc Kovac | April 25, 2015 at 12:05a.m.

COLUMBUS

The Ohio Senate again has signed off on a resolution calling for the creation of a separate commission to decide changes in pay for public officials.

The 33-0 vote this week sends SJR 1 back to the Ohio House for its consideration. Senators approved a comparable resolution late last year that did not move out of the other chamber.

SJR 1 calls for the creation of a nine-member Public Office Compensation Commission, which would be required to review the pay rates of elected public officials throughout the state.

Members would be appointed by the governor, majority and minority leaders of the Legislature and the chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court. Appointees could not be elected officials, family members of elected officials, government employees or lobbyists.

The commission would offer recommendations for increases or decreases to pay rates for statewide, county and township officials and judges but not some other officials, whose pay is established via resolution at the local level. Lawmakers could override pay recommendations.

Nineteen other states have comparable compensation commissions in place, said Senate President Keith Faber, R-Celina, the primary sponsor of the measure.

“It’s time for us to take politicians out of the business of giving each other pay raises,” he said, adding later, “Many of us believe, as I do, that there are certainly elected officials around Ohio [who] certainly merit pay raises, but doing it in an abstract political process is not the best way to do it.”

Lawmakers’ approval would place the resolution before voters for a final decision.

The Ohio House passed its own public-official pay-raise bill late last year that was not supported by the Senate. The House also removed language from the biennial budget bill that would have increased pay for judges, an amendment supported by the supreme court’s chief justice.