For their third straight meeting, the biennial Oklahoma Board on Legislative Compensation voted to keep the base salary for state lawmakers at $47,500 — for now — but today’s lively and at times contentious discussion concluded after more than an hour with increases to the stipends given to eight leadership positions.
The speaker of the House of Representatives and the president pro tempore of the State Senate — currently Rep. Kyle Hilbert (R-Bristow) and Sen. Lonnie Paxton (R-Tuttle) — will see their leadership stipends increase by $4,921.40, or about 26 percent. Former legislator James Leewright moved to establish speaker and president pro tempore stipends at 50 percent of the base salary. His motion passed 6-3, with Robert DeNegri, Scott Douglas and Jeff Baumann voting against it.
Leewright also moved to make the stipends for each chamber’s appropriations committee chairperson, majority floor leader and minority floor leader equal to 33 percent of base salary. Functionally, that increased those six positions’ stipends from $12,982.20 to $15,675, a $2,692.80 increase (or about 20 percent). The motion passed by the same tally of 6-3, with Chairman Brian Jackson, Chip Carter, Jennifer Miller, Gary Unruh and Matt Tilly joining Leewright in favor.
But for the day’s first vote, Jackson, Miller and Unruh joined Douglas and Baumann in supporting DeNegri’s motion “that the salary remain the same as it is now” for all legislators. Leewright, Carter and Tilly voted against it.
“Our task now is to determine if the compensation paid to a legislator in Oklahoma is fair, regardless of what increases other people have had or what state employees are paid,” said DeNegri, the longest-tenured member of the obscure board. “It’s, ‘Is it fair?’ That’s what our job is.”
Perhaps caught off guard by DeNegri’s motion to keep legislative pay flat for the third straight time, Leewright later encouraged Jackson to place language on the agenda for the board’s upcoming — and unusual — subsequent meeting to allow for reconsideration of the base salary question.
While Bauman seemed open to that idea, it irritated DeNegri and Douglas.
“The business that has already been done here does not need to be evaluated,” DeNegri said. “We’re not going to revote here.”
Carter interjected: “But we can. That’s up to us.”
Ultimately, Jackson called a subsequent meeting of the Board on Legislative Compensation for 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 4, owing to a peculiar logistical problem.
Earlier this year, lawmakers passed HB 2674 to create a new Statewide Official Compensation Commission, which shall consist of the same members as Board on Legislative Compensation and “shall be authorized to meet only on the same date.” Since the new law and board take effect Nov. 1, Maria Maule — a senior assistant attorney general assigned to staff Tuesday’s meeting — recommended that the LCB meet a second time this year on Nov. 4 to enable the SOCC to meet.
“For this first year, there’s a little bit of tension between those statutes, because a board that is not in effect can’t meet,” she said.
Leewright, the president of the Oklahoma Restaurant Association who still works with lawmakers in pursuit of policy changes, said he hoped his fellow board members would be willing to reconsider the topic of base legislative pay at that meeting.
“In fairness, I think it’s our job in this position, I think it’s our job to fully vet, and that’s why I made the motion to put it on our next agenda,” Leewright said.
Douglas responded quickly.
“I believe we were fair,” he said. “Why are we here now? Why did we just vote?”
If it needed to meet again, Carter noted that the board should at least have the option to reconsider its position because “you might find information that changes your mind.”
Maule said she would try to research whether any law would prevent a board from revoting on an issue at a subsequent meeting, although she “would counsel against it.”
Minutes before the meeting unraveled over what it could consider at its next meeting, Leewright pitched his perspective as a former House and Senate member — albeit long after the board’s vote to maintain base salary levels.
“My efforts here are to try to offset some of the cost. They have not seen any increase while we know what inflation has done. Beef alone has gone up to 115 percent. Most of these legislators are having to keep their apartments year round, even though they are not compensated for that,” Leewright said. “As a former legislator myself, I know the financial detriment that it has, and my goal is that as we are seeing more of this Legislature is either uniquely retired or extremely wealthy or you need to be fresh out of college, it is very difficult to get those that are in their peak earning years — the ones with the knowledge, the ones that have the pulse on what their district is doing — to want to commit to 12 years to serve. I’m trying to help defray some of the cost. I almost personally take it as an insult that this is an increase in what they are taking home. This is trying to defer costs that they have already.”
Leewright had also attempted to create new stipends for additional leadership positions — like assistant floor leaders and majority whips — but his motion was rebuffed by Maule owing to the “narrow” wording of Tuesday’s agenda.
About three hours after the board adjourned Tuesday, Paxton issued a press release that “encouraged members of the Legislative Compensation Board to reconsider their recent vote on pay for members of the Oklahoma Legislature.”
“I appreciate the members of the Legislative Compensation Board for having these difficult discussions and for agreeing to revisit this issue next month,” Paxton said. “Leadership pay adjustments should not be separate from member pay adjustments. Every legislator, regardless of title, works tirelessly to represent their constituents, pass meaningful legislation and help move Oklahoma forward. This is not unlike the approach some agencies have taken with state employees, who have appropriately received pay raises in recent years to help their salaries remain competitive with the private sector. Legislators have not received a pay adjustment since 2019. The job of a lawmaker takes substantial time away from families and other career obligations outside of the Capitol. For these reasons and more, any decision to increase leadership compensation should also reflect the work and commitment of every member.”
Two of Paxton’s appointees to the board, Baumann and Unruh, cast votes in favor of keeping the legislative base salary flat.
Background on Oklahoma legislative pay
In 2023 and 2021, the Board on Legislative Compensation voted to make no change to lawmakers’ base pay. In 2023, however, the board approved a 5 percent increase to the additional stipends that the eight leadership positions receive.
With members appointed by the governor and both chambers of the Oklahoma Legislature, the Board on Legislative Compensation meets every October in odd-numbered years to consider adjustments to lawmaker pay. For the first time in three meetings, a woman — Miller — had been appointed to the board.
In 2019, the board approved a $12,749 raise for legislator pay, the first hike of lawmaker pay in 20 years. That came two years after the board cut legislators’ pay by 8.8 percent in 2017, a largely punitive decision made after the Legislature failed to address a significant budget shortfall during regular session.
Historically, the board has struggled to contextualize compensation packages for the Oklahoma Legislature compared to surrounding states, such as New Mexico where lawmakers receive no pay. In Texas, on the other hand, salary levels are low, but retirement packages are higher, campaign accounts can be used to pay for a variety of expenses and district offices are robustly funded.
Judicial compensation question
In September, the Board on Judicial Compensation voted unanimously to recommend a 17.58 percent across-the-board increase in judicial pay. That board’s recommendations can be rejected or modified by the Oklahoma Legislature. If lawmakers take no action on the topic, the board’s recommended increase takes effect.
Complicating the “total compensation” metric in Oklahoma is that legislators who live 51 miles or more from the State Capitol can claim a $196 per diem expense for up to 68 legislative days. About one-third of the Legislature, however, lives within that radius and cannot claim those funds, while those who live beyond it often keep OKC-area apartments year-round.
On Nov. 4, the Board on Legislative Compensation is set to meet at 9:30 a.m. in Room 4S.9 of the State Capitol. The same members are set to convene for the initial meeting of the Statewide Official Compensation Commission at 10:30 a.m. in the same room.
Historically, the Legislature has set the pay levels for statewide-elected officials, a dynamic that created perceived conflicts of interest during annual budget negotiations, such as the 2023 session that ended with the Senate not hearing a House bill to hike pay for future statewide officials. As a result, lawmakers this session created the new compensation commission.
(Update: This article was updated at 1:10 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 21, to include comment from Senate President Pro Tempore Lonnie Paxton.)
