Rosamae Neil Smith
April 14, 2008
Charles "Charlie" Herbert Rice Jr.
April 16, 2008
Louisiana residents earn among the lowest average salaries in the nation, but the state is embarking on a spending spree for its leaders.
The governor’s salary is up and statewide elected officials are making more. Leaders of state departments are trumping them all, in many cases earning – or about to earn – salaries that leapfrog their Southern peers.
The argument is it takes a lot of money to lure quality folks from the private sector. Apparently, lawmakers are being told, the lure of public service and potentially helping improve your state isn’t enough anymore.
But while some lawmakers say they understand the need to pay a premium for quality people, others have significant objections with the proposed salary increases for two leaders: Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek and Economic Development Secretary Stephen Moret.
Lawmakers don’t question their qualifications, but they say they’re having trouble going home to poor – and some not so poor – districts and explaining how the state can shell out tens of thousands of dollars in pay raises to public officials.
“What do I tell a constituent who asks me, ‘What justifies paying these guys these types of salaries?”’ Rep. John Schroder, R-Covington, asked Moret during a legislative committee hearing.
Gov. Bobby Jindal’s budget proposal for next year includes $175,000 in salary boosts for Moret and his top deputy. Moret would receive $320,000 a year as secretary. His predecessor was paid $245,746, and even that was well above the average Southern salary for state economic development chiefs. Moret’s top deputy would earn $237,500 annually – about a $100,000 increase.
For comparison, Tennessee pays its economic development secretary $180,000 a year, Mississippi pays $176,000, Alabama pays $159,000, Georgia pays $156,000 and North Carolina pays $117,000. And those states have been trouncing Louisiana in luring new business.
Rep. Karen Carter Peterson, D-New Orleans, called Moret’s salary “offensive.”
If that’s offensive, she might want to look at the compensation package proposed for Pastorek by the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.
Pastorek’s pay package would be $355,611 this year, up from $299,249. It could grow up to 6 percent annually if BESE gives him a positive job evaluation. By July 1, 2011, Pastorek could bring in $448,951 a year – well above salaries paid to his peers in the South, even in states with much higher costs of living.
The Legislature’s joint budget committee refused to approve the new contract for Pastorek until they get more details about how his work will be graded. BESE is expected to discuss the evaluation process at its meetings this week.
Sen. Mike Michot, R-Lafayette, chairman of the joint budget committee, called Pastorek’s salary “excessive.” The average education superintendent in the South oversees more schools and students and earns a base salary of $175,416 – nearly $100,000 less than Pastorek’s proposed base pay before housing and car allowances are included.
How about another set of numbers for comparison? The median household income in Louisiana was $37,472 in 2006, according to latest available data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Nineteen percent of Louisiana’s residents live in poverty. Only five states have lower median incomes, and only one state has more poor people.
The explanation by supporters of Moret and Pastorek is that the men have left high-powered, high-paying jobs and that both have taken significant pay cuts. Pastorek was a New Orleans lawyer and former general counsel for NASA. Moret left his job as head of the nine-parish Baton Rouge Area Chamber of Commerce.
The two men have indicated they don’t expect to be paid any less than the proposals on the table before the Legislature.
“This is what it will take to keep me here. And listen, if it doesn’t work out, you know, I have another place I can go,” Pastorek said.
“To be quite frank with you, I was not willing to take a 50 percent cut to take this job,” Moret said.
Pastorek went so far as to tell lawmakers his proposed salary was “the lowest I could see myself justifying to my kids and my family.”
Meanwhile, the governor is expected to live with just $130,000 a year – and that’s with a pay raise that kicked in when Jindal took office.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Melinda Deslatte covers the state Capitol for The Associated Press.
