Dec. 8—Pay for state lawmakers in Connecticut will increase by 4.5% in each year of the two-year term that begins on Jan. 8 under a provision of the pay-raise bill that sped through the General Assembly two years ago.
Passage of the bill by the House and Senate on the same day in May 2022 raised the salaries for lawmakers and statewide constitutional officers for the first time in more than two decades. It also created a mechanism for future raises.
In the case of lawmakers, the bill raised the annual base pay for legislators from $28,000 to $40,000, effective on Jan. 4, 2023. That was the first day of the two-year term for lawmakers elected in 2022.
The bill also instructed the executive director of the Office of Legislative Management in consultation with the state labor commissioner to adjust legislative salaries before the start of every term, guided by a federal measure of wage growth, the Employment Cost Index.
The first calculation under the indexing provision will raise the base legislative pay from $40,000 to $43,600. Pay for the top two leaders, the House speaker and Senate president pro tem, will go from $52,000 to $56,680
No lawmaker gets only the base pay. An additional $4,500 for unvouchered expenses is paid to House members, $5,550 to senators. Also, many lawmakers have a leadership title that carries additional pay.
Annual compensation for committee co-chairs and assistant leaders, for example, is $50,685.
The Employment Cost Index is the same metric used to calculate annual increases to Connecticut’s minimum wage.
The pay for statewide constitutional officers is pegged to judicial salaries.
The governor’s $150,000 salary went to $226,711 in the term that began in January 2023, the same as the chief justice of the Supreme Court. Pay for the other officers went from $110,000 to $189,483, the same as a Superior Court judge.
Gov Ned Lamont, who is independently wealthy, does not collect a salary.
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