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The hottest news at the Capitol this week hasn’t been about transportation funding, education or any of the other big and complicated policies legislators are grappling with this session.

It was Gov. Mark Dayton’s decision to boost pay for members of his cabinet, a move he says is long overdue.

Republicans have seized on the issue, saying Dayton made a rash decision when some Minnesotans are still struggling financially (and it’s a message that will almost certainly show up in GOP campaign literature come 2016).

Even Democrats in the Minnesota Senate, who are up for re-election in 2016 – and who may be trying to avoid that aforementioned campaign literature - voted 63-2 this week to suspend Dayton’s pay increases. The effort was led by DFL Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk of Cook. Now, Dayton says he no longer trusts Bakk because Bakk stabbed him in the back.

PoliGraph looked at two claims on opposite sides of the debate, and found both of them are mostly accurate.

What’s more important to the debate over salaries is context.

The Evidence

GOP Rep. Roz Peterson of Lakeville: “At a time when take-home pay for families remains flat and some Minnesotans are still struggling to make ends meet, it’s outrageous that the governor would approve enormous salary increases for commissioners and political appointees already making six-figure salaries.”

Peterson is among Dayton’s leading critics on the issue. She has sponsored legislation that would give the Legislature more say in how much department commissioners are paid.

Peterson says Minnesota worker wages are stagnant, and that’s true, according to the state’s department of economic development.

And while not every cabinet member is getting the same salary boost, some are getting large pay increases. Several top officials are getting a roughly 30 percent increase in pay, and many were already making six-figure salaries.

Peterson’s statement is accurate, though it’s a matter of opinion that these new salaries are “outrageous.”

DFL Gov. Mark Dayton: “Your Caucus' Executive Director is currently paid $123,971. When you assumed the majority in January, he received a salary increase of $16,171, less than two months after he began his state service. The Chief Clerk of the House (a non-partisan position) is currently paid $148,000.08. When he was promoted in January, he received an increase of $32,508 over his previously reported salary. His current salary is more than any of my Commissioners were paid before their recent increases, and it remains higher than ten commissioners earn now.”

Dayton is referring to two key House employees: House GOP Caucus Executive Director Ben Golnik and House Chief Clerk Pat Murphy.

By and large, Dayton has his salary figures right, though he’s incorrect that Murphy’s pay went up by $32,500 when he was promoted in early January. It went up by roughly $24,800.

Dayton is also correct that Murphy still makes more than some of his cabinet members.

Here’s what they didn’t say…

Both Peterson and Dayton leave out some important context.

For instance, Peterson doesn’t mention that legislators in the last session decided to lift a roughly $119,500 pay cap on commissioner pay based on the recommendations of a bi-partisan committee, which included Republican Reps. Mary Liz Holberg and Mike Benson, and Republican Sen. Jeremy Miller.

While the Legislature passed the recommendations, it didn’t make any decisions about precisely how much individual commissioners would make. That was up to Dayton.

All along, Dayton has argued that agency heads who manage multi-billion dollar budgets, hundreds of people and many public programs deserve pay that’s more in-line with those responsibilities and is attractive to top talent.

“Mid-level managers at many Minnesota companies earn more than my commissioners, who manage larger budgets and more employees,” Dayton wrote in a letter to legislators. “People who choose public service should expect to earn less than they would in the private sector; however, it is still instructive to compare their incomes and responsibilities.”

Before the raises, many of Minnesota’s top commissioners were making less than their counterparts in other states, including Colorado, Iowa and North Dakota.

Incidentally, Peterson also approved salary increases – and in one case up to $7,000 in annual bonuses – for several top school officials in Lakeville, where she served on the school board.

Why?

“Three years ago when we first signed [the superintendent’s] contract, this Board took a new look at how we could align our contracts to be closer to the private sector,” Peterson said during an April 8, 2014 school board meeting. “And I think that we were leaders in changing how status quo has been done in the past.”

Prior to her raise, the Lakeville Superintendent made around $180,000 a year. By 2017, it will be about $187,000 – more than $30,000 more than Dayton’s top-paid commissioners.

Dayton leaves out some important context, too.

The legislature gives out pay to all employees based on experience and responsibility. The current pay rates have been around for years, though a 2 percent increases was approved during the last legislative session when the DFL was in charge. That increase applied to all jobs.

That means that anyone taking Golnik’s job with similar experience would have been paid the same amount, regardless of whether the GOP or the DFL was in charge. When Republicans took over majority control of the House earlier this year and Golnik became the Majority Caucus Executive Director, the job automatically came with more responsibility – for instance, managing 45 people when the GOP was in the minority to nearly 300 people in the majority.

The same goes for Chief Clerk Murphy, who was promoted in early January, too.

Furthermore, both Golnik and Murphy are making less than their predecessors.

That said, the GOP-controlled House Rules Committee did approve those salaries – as they did for every employee of the chamber.