DiMasi eyes bolstering pay of allies
New leadership posts would add to salaries
House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi will recommend today the creation of at least a half-dozen new legislative leadership posts that could add thousands of dollars to the annual pay of state lawmakers who helped elect him speaker in the fall, according to a member of the Republican leadership team and high-ranking Democrats.
The ambitious House reorganization proposal would also establish a new paid position, speaker pro tem, which would probably go to DiMasi's most loyal ally, Representative Thomas M. Petrolati, Democrat of Ludlow, House lawmakers told the Globe.
In addition, DiMasi would seek to add six or seven new paid positions to chair new committees, such as a Higher Education Committee and a Public Health Committee, which some lawmakers have been seeking to address policy areas of growing importance. In the past, lawmakers named to committee chairmanships or leadership posts were paid an additional $7,500 to $15,000 a year.
The aggregate cost of DiMasi's expanded leadership roster would be about $65,000 annually, according to Assistant House Minority Leader George N. Peterson Jr. of Grafton. A two-year, 4.1-percent pay raise that went into effect Jan. 1 lifted the base pay for lawmakers to about $55,500 a year.
Most of the new posts will go to Democrats. ''There was some conversation about an additional paid slot for the minority party on one of the joint committees, but that was conversation," said Peterson, who has been briefed on the bill but had not yet seen it.
DiMasi, a North End Democrat, vowed early on that his leadership style would give members far greater decision-making power in a House where dominating speakers like the recently departed Thomas M. Finneran left little latitude for lieutenants.
The pay raise bill DiMasi will file today would appear to make good on that pledge by creating several new positions that expand the ability of lower-ranking lawmakers to steer the ship of state. It would also allow him to dole out good will to lawmakers who helped elect him speaker.
But the political perils of the move, which will be joined by the Senate in a more limited way, could offset any good will DiMasi would generate among his fellow House members by generating a political backlash. The bill must make it past Governor Mitt Romney, who has been attempting to improve relations with the Democrat-dominated Legislature. But new assignments will add costs as the state tackles a $500-million structural deficit and faces a potentially costly decision from the Supreme Judicial Court regarding school funding formulas.
In 2003, Romney vetoed a pet bill of Finneran's that would have allowed the Mattapan Democrat to bestow raises to committee chairmen without a gubernatorial check on that power, but Romney at the time said he had no quarrel with House leaders reorganizing their chamber and raising pay. Finneran, unable to cobble together a two-thirds majority to override the veto, postponed action on the matter and ultimately left before he could preside over another vote.
At the time, Finneran called his pay raise proposal a reorganization initiative, and it would have benefited a half dozen or so House lawmakers and would have cost the state about $50,000 a year. Finneran was seeking authority to grant bonus pay to new chairmen and vice chairmen in addition to their roughly $53,000 annual base salary. Currently, 51 of the 160 House members receive bonus pay.
It was unclear yesterday whether DiMasi, who was Finneran's majority leader, intends to revive the unilateral pay feature in his new bill. DiMasi's spokeswoman, Kimberly Haberlin, said only that ''this is not Finneran's bill."
She justified the legislation as necessary to keep the House committee structure reflective of the changing world.
''In modernizing the committee structure, we are revising committees, changing names, and combining some," Haberlin said. ''These revisions need to be reflected in the existing compensation statute."
Senate Robert A. Antonioni, Senate chairman of the Joint Education Committee, said one big change in the bill was the dividing of his committee into one serving kindergarten-12th grade education issues and one serving higher education. Antonioni said it was an intelligent change because higher education issues have tended to get lost amid the furious debates over MCAS tests and bilingual education in public schools, among other issues.
''I think that giving higher education its own forum might give more attention to public policy dealing with those schools," Antonioni said. 