On last day of session, Arizona lawmakers vote to triple their per diem

PHOENIX — Brushing aside the “optics” of the last-minute action, state lawmakers have voted to triple the daily allowance they now get.

The approval Monday by the full House and Senate came after Rep. Noel Campbell, R-Prescott, urged colleagues to make the vote on the politically risky move bipartisan and unanimous.

“It will give cover to anybody who has questions about it,” he said. “If we do this in unison, 60 of us (in the House) vote, that is a message, a strong message to everybody out there, that you’re not going to attack us and peel us off, one at a time and threaten us with retaliation because we voted to raise our per diem rate.”

But Campbell did not get his wish as legislators from both parties found reasons to oppose the move.

Lawmakers who don’t live in Maricopa County now get $60 a day for the first 120 days the Legislature is in session, counting weekends, a rate not raised since 1984. Under the terms of HB 2760, they would be entitled to the amount the U.S. General Services Administration allows federal employees who have to travel into Maricopa County: $129 a day for lodging and $56 for meals.

Everyone who testified, both lawmakers and the public, was sympathetic to the out-county lawmakers who have to maintain a second residence.

But HB 2760 also seeks to raise the allowance for those who live in Maricopa County — people who can go home every night and even have outside jobs — from $35 a day to half the GSA rate, or $92.50. That was enough to convince two in-county legislators to withhold their support.

“I live in Glendale so I don’t drive that far,” said Republican Rep. Anthony Kern. And he decried the timing — the vote coming on the last days of the session — as well as “the optics” of lawmakers approving a sharp increase in their allowance.

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Rep. Athena Salman, D-Tempe, questioned the flat rate, regardless of what actual out-of-pocket expenses lawmakers incur. She cited a 1947 Arizona Supreme Court ruling that upheld the legality of per diem allowance but with language saying the law “provides for actual and necessary expenses for subsistence and lodging to the extent that these are supported by receipts and vouchers.”

And Rep. Aaron Lieberman, D-Phoenix, questioned the idea of lawmakers approving more money for themselves even when they refused just last week to restore all of the funds that have been cut during the recession in state aid to public schools.

The whole idea of the vote drew raised eyebrows from teachers who were at the Capitol on Monday monitoring the votes on spending bills.

“I can’t get beyond the irony of your plight and how it is so incredibly parallel to what is going on with teachers,” testified Christine Marsh. She was named a 2016 teacher of the year and was one of the prime proponents of higher pay.

Marsh pointed out that proponents of the allowance hike, like Rep. Charlene Fernandez, D-Yuma, have said the low salary — $24,000 a year — coupled with the lack of adequate reimbursement has resulted in few people telling her they are interested in running for the Legislature.

“And yet that, of course, is what teachers are facing,” Marsh said.

She said lawmakers voting to hike their expenses should be ready for other parallels, like people telling them they knew what the job paid when they took it and they shouldn’t complain about the pay.

“That’s what we hear,” Marsh said. “And it’s offensive and not very cool.”