You may notice this week a flier in your door regarding your state representative, Brian Murray, D-Milford. The flier focuses on his support of a bill, passed earlier this year, which raised the pay of state lawmakers, constitutional officeholders, and members of the judiciary by an average of 40 percent.

The members of the MassFiscal Alliance, the state’s largest advocacy group for accountability in Massachusetts government, wanted to put the facts about that bill in your hands.

This bill, passed in an urgent flurry Beacon Hill watchers have said is unprecedented, was remarkable for several reasons. Many of the increases were shockingly large. The annual salary of the Speaker of the House increased from $102,279.44 to 157,547.97; that of the Senate President grew from $89,779.44 to 162,547.97.

The dust hasn’t settled on what this massive shady pay grab will cost taxpayers, but early estimates hover around $18 million dollars. That’s the same amount lawmakers claimed they needed last July when they voted to eliminate the popular and traditional sales-tax-free weekend.

The bill was passed with an emergency preamble attached. Lawmakers got the money, retroactive to the beginning of the session, right away.

Members of the judiciary were included among employees experiencing a bump. The judiciary is a protected class among state workers, and a little-known statute protecting them protects the entire pay-raise package from citizen repeal.

And the implications of the raise are even bigger and broader than the shock of the initial sticker price. Because the bill converts lawmaker’s per diem travel reimbursements from one kind of payment to another, that travel money is now included in retirement calculations.

Voting for the pay raise was the first significant vote cast by your new representative, Brian Murray. Murray even voted to override Governor Baker’s veto of the bill. Governor Baker, at the time, called the pay raises “fiscally irresponsible.”

On his first significant vote, Rep. Murray joined the Beacon Hill establishment to award himself a pay raise, a larger expense account, retroactive pay, and a boosted pension.

Every Republican in both the House and Senate and several Democrats, including at least one other freshman, voted against the raise, Murray voted yes.

Murray voted yes to a pay raise. He voted yes to a bigger pension. He voted yes to an unrepealable monstrosity with enormous ill effects on our state’s ability to provide services.

During the money grab vote, legislative did not deliberate on how to pay for the $18 million raise. They held no public forums for hashing out competing ideas. Instead, they relied on the recommendations of a commission, a commission appointed and funded by those who benefited most.

Only the echo chamber that is the Beacon Hill establishment would think such a scheme did not sound ridiculous.

We at Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance are concerned that politicians like Brian Murray are telling a different story in their communities about this Beacon Hill fiasco. We want to remove the spin and provide the facts around the vote.

Read over our mailer, and check out our website at www.MassFiscal.org. And if you agree that Rep. Murray’s vote is outrageous, let him know.

Paul Craney is executive director of the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance​.