Sequim lawmaker Kevin Van De Wege is one of a dozen state House of Representatives members who had opted for voluntary pay cuts — and the only one of three representing the North Olympic Peninsula.
Of the other two, one says he is thinking it over.
And the third is against the idea.
There are 147 lawmakers — 49 senators and 98 representatives — in the state Legislature.
Van De Wege said he opted for a 5 percent reduction of his $42,106 annual salary because this year’s state Legislature cut state employee pay by 3 percent — one of the belt-tightening measures enacted to help close a budget gap of more than $5 billion.
“If we’re cutting people’s pay, we should cut our own pay,” said Van De Wege, the majority whip in the part-time Legislature who has a full-time job: He’s a lieutenant and paramedic with Clallam County Fire District No. 3 in Sequim.
Neither of Van De Wege’s fellow 24th District legislators for Clallam and Jefferson counties and upper Grays Harbor County has taken that step.
Freshman Rep. Steve Tharinger, D-Sequim, said last week he hadn’t decided what to do.
Tharinger, too, has a full-time job — elected Clallam County commissioner — through the end of this year.
Sen. Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam, said Saturday that he doesn’t plan to opt for a pay cut.
“It’s kind of a phony issue from my perspective,” he said.
Rank-and-file lawmakers earn $42,106 a year, while House Speak Frank Chopp, the first to take a pay cut, earns $50,106.
Tharinger said he is mulling the idea.
“The most compelling argument is that other state employees have been experiencing cuts and furloughs, but there are travel expenses, rent for offices and just miscellaneous costs that you aren’t compensated for” as a state legislator, Tharinger said.
“There are expenses that happen that come out of your salary.”
Tharinger decided earlier this year not to seek re-election this fall as Clallam County commissioner, a post that pays $63,504 annually, opting instead to focus on the state legislative seat he won last year.
Living up to a campaign commitment, Tharinger said in June that he had returned a little more than $400 to the county for commissioner meetings he missed in Port Angeles because he was called away by state legislative business in Olympia.
He arrived at the $400 amount by computing the hours of county meetings he missed during the legislative session and figuring out an hourly wage, he said.
Hargrove, who returned a call for comment from Utah where he was on a motorcycle road trip, said, “I don’t have any plans for a voluntary pay cut.”
He added: “The amount of money that a legislator expends is not just their salary.
“We have budgets for travel, phones and mailing. I’m very frugal on those items.”
“There’s a lot of things to consider,” he said, adding that the issue of legislators voluntarily cutting pay “is kind of a phony issue from my perspective.”
Hargrove, a self-employed professional forester who served in the House of Representatives from 1985 through 1992 and in the state Senate since then, pointed to “a career’s worth of work that saves taxpayers money.”
“The other way to evaluate legislators other than their pay is their production, how much they are saving the taxpayers because of the things they’ve been able to put in place that work well,” he said.
“You have to look at the whole picture, how effective they are, how they use expense money,” he said, adding that voters have control of who serves.
None of the state’s senators had volunteered by Friday to cut his or her salaries, said Tom Hoemann, secretary of the state Senate, although his office has had inquiries about the process for doing so.
Cuts are of base pay and do not include the $90 daily expense account when the Legislature is in session, a mileage allowance of 50 cents per mile and state medical, dental and retirement benefits.
Van De Wege said he directed that his pay cut be retroactive to July 1, the beginning of the fiscal year.
The move cuts Van De Wege’s salary by $175 monthly, said House Deputy Chief Clerk Bernard Dean, an annual cut of $2,100 which will result in total pay for the next fiscal year of $40,006.
In the same bill that cut state workers’ pay, lawmakers approved an easy way for them and statewide elected officials to waive a portion of their paychecks.
Until a report ran in The Olympian of Olympia and The News Tribune of Tacoma on July 31 — a story picked up by The Associated Press and published in the Peninsula Daily News last Monday — only four lawmakers and four of the state’s nine elected officials had opted to voluntarily cut their pay.
Dean said Friday that his office was awaiting paperwork from at least two members in additional to the dozen who had already signed up.
Van De Wege said he had not been aware of a process for cutting pay without approval of the state Citizens Commission on Salaries for Elected Officials, which was created with a constitutional amendment that prohibits the lowering of elected officials’ pay.
“Most of us who wanted to take advantage of this didn’t know we could do this,” he added, saying he expects “one-third of the [147 state] legislators will take advantage of this.”
He said he didn’t realize that the provision for waiving part of lawmakers’ pay, which House members approved, had survived the rest of the process.
Chopp, a 43rd District Democrat, and Larry Seaquist, a 26th District Democrat, are opting for 5 percent cuts, while Troy Kelley, a Democrat from the 28th District, is taking a 5.011 percent cut.
Taking 3 percent cuts are Ann Rivers, 18th District Republican; Bruce Dammeier, 25th District Republican; Christopher Hurst, 31st District Democrat; Michael Sells, 38th District Democrat; Tina Orwall, 33rd District Democrat; Reuven Carlyle, assistant majority whip and Democrat from the 36th District; J.T. Wilcox, 2nd District Republican; and Gary Alexander, 20th District Republican.
The money realized from House pay cuts stays in the House operating budget, Dean said.
Among statewide officials, Gov. Chris Gregoire, Treasurer Jim McIntire, Lt. Gov. Brad Owen and Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn all volunteered to forfeit 3 percent of their pay, The Olympian reported.
The other five statewide elected officials, including Attorney General Rob McKenna, have said they donated equivalent amounts to charity, or plan to.
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Managing Editor/News Leah Leach can be reached at 360-417-3531 or leah.leach@peninsuladailynews.com.
