By Bob Katzen

The new base salary for the 2023-2024 session for representatives is $73,655—up $3,119 (4.4 percent) from the $70,536 base salary in the 2021-2022 session.

Representatives’ salaries are up for adjustment in January every two years, either up or down, under a 1998 constitutional amendment approved by a better than two-to-one margin by voters. It requires that every two years the salaries of the governor, the other five constitutional statewide officers and all representatives and senators be increased or decreased based on data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) that measures the quarterly change in salaries and wages.

Representatives’ base salaries were increased by $2,515 for the 2021-2022 legislative session; $3,709 for the 2019-2020 session; and $2,515 for the 2017-2018 legislative session. Those hikes came on the heels of a salary freeze for the 2015-2016 legislative session, a $1,100 pay cut for the 2013-2014 session and a $306 pay cut for the 2011-2012 session. Prior to 2011, legislators’ salaries had been raised every two years since the $46,410 base pay was first raised under the constitutional amendment in 2001.

The new $73,655 base salary means representatives’ base salaries have been raised $27,245, or 58 percent, since 2011 when the mandated salary adjustment became part of the state constitution and representatives were earning $46,410.