Lest anyone still doubt that the Delaware General Assembly is THE Poster Child for the Delaware Way, Chad Livengood’s article in today’s News-Journal should disabuse you of that notion. The base annual salary for Delaware legislators is $42,750. That figure is a lie, a lie perpetrated by the Delaware General Assembly members themselves:
What it doesn’t show is an extra $7,334 mislabeled as “expenses,” money they can spend any way they want without any scrutiny. Added up, the part-timers really take home a minimum salary of $50,084 before taxes. Among those whose salaries are spelled out in the budget — the governor, judges and Cabinet secretaries — only legislators have this misleading category of income.
Although the extra money is labeled “expenses,” the IRS says it’s taxable income, period. When combined with additional pay for committee work and leadership posts, the hidden income inflates the compensation used to calculate pensions for the average legislator by nearly 30 percent, a News Journal investigation has found.
So, before we proceed any further, the News-Journal has already established that the members of the Delaware General Assembly are lying to you about what they get paid, and don’t want you to know that they’re drawing a pension based on a hidden and inflated figure. This does not happen by accident. The most corrupt members of the General Assembly created this windfall, and, up until now, members of the General Assembly have gone along with it. I have no doubt that Nancy Cook, former Joint Finance co-chair for life, was at the root of concocting this scheme. This is Nancy at her most typical:
Elected in 2002, (State Senator Karen) Peterson recalls the first legislative paycheck she received in 2003. “I was surprised when I got my first pay stub and there was this second entry that said ‘expenses,’ but I had never turned anything in,” she said. Peterson said former Sen. Nancy Cook told her everyone gets the expense money and not to worry about accounting for any expenses related to the job, Peterson said.
Cook, who was voted out of office in 2010, declined to be interviewed.
However, now that it’s been uncovered, for my ‘pardon the expression’, money, every legislator is equally guilty until proven innocent since they all benefit from it. It is time to eliminate these blatant abuses of the pension system. No excuses, no rationalizations. And none of this grandfathering themselves crap like they did on the ‘Super-COLA’.
You may recall that former Rep. Roger Roy tried to cite some ‘constitutional’ reason why they had to grandfather back in 1997. Wellll…:
The $7,334 expense allowance appears to conflict with the constitution because legislators get additional compensation of 40 cents per mile for commuting to Dover. The constitution plainly says lawmakers “shall receive an annual salary and an annual expense allowance for transportation and such other necessary and proper purposes as the General Assembly shall by law provide.”
Funny how legislators cite the Constitution when trying to justify institutional greed but pointedly ignore it when it might prove inconvenient to accruing yet more unearned dollars.
Here are other ways that legislators pad their paychecks: A 40-cent mileage reimbursement that all legislators get; compensation for ‘serving’ in leadership; and additional compensation for ‘serving’ on certain committees, even if you don’t show up. Who can forget the nonfeasance of Blowhard Bloviator Colin Bonini?
The News-Journal has performed a public service with its recent ongoing coverage of the unethical activities going on in Legislative Hall. Had the News-Journal reporters and other press done their jobs back around, say, 1997, much of this would have been revealed then. It has been going on for a long time. While the Nancy Cooks, Roger Roys, Uncle Thurms and Terry Spences are gone, there are plenty of elected connivers still around who seek to enrich themselves at the public’s expense.
I call on anyone and everyone, regardless of political or ideological affiliation, to make every legislator accountable for their behavior come 2012. Either they work to reform the system, or they get called out.
2012 is an election year. I think we should make it the year that the Delaware Way crumbles for good.