LANSING, Mich. (MIRS News) – In an ideal world, the governor of Michigan would make at least $200,000 and the Attorney General would make closer to $250,000, the chair of the State Officers Compensation Commission (SOCC) told MIRS Monday.
Tom Cochran, a former state representative and Lansing fire chief, said all elected state-level public officials are underpaid considering the responsibilities they hold, but there isn’t the political will to do anything about it.
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“That would be the kiss of death for a lot of people,” he said.
Top on the list is the position of Attorney General which, at $112,410 a year, is $25,428 below the average salary for the AGs in the 50 states. Only 11 other states offer a lower salary to their Attorney General, according to 2021 data collected from the Council of State Governments (CSG).
Among the six states closest to Michigan in population (Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia), the annual average AG salary is $170,257.
“For me, it’s not about the individual and some people get focused on that,” he said. “She’s got a lot of quality people working for her who are making a whole lot more money than she does.”
Based on numbers from 2017, 78 of the 534 employees within the Attorney General’s office make more money than the Attorney General.
As for other positions, Cochran said he’d like to see the Governor make $200,000 “at least” and the Secretary of State make in the same ballpark as other department heads, which is in the $180,000-$200,000 range.
At $159,300, Michigan’s governor is the 17th highest paid. She’s above the average salary among the states of $147,201 a year. The Secretary of State is the 22nd best paid, according to the CSG data from 2021.
Legislators, he said, should make around $80,000-$85,000 a year for the 40-to-60 hours a week they put in, but again, he sees that there isn’t a political will to do it.
“We want somebody in there who will work for the people of Michigan and not be sidelined by the idea of additional monies that could be there as far as donations and those sort of things,” he said on the MIRS Monday podcast.
“We know it happens in politics, but if you pay someone a quality salary, they’re more apt to be honest and the kind of people we want in those positions. People who are compensated for the work they do.”
Ideally, Cochran would like to get the SOCC out of the business of making salary recommendations every two years that rarely go anywhere with the lawmakers. Preferably, an adjusted salary for each state officer could be voted on by voters and those positions would receive annual cost of living increases.
SOCC would only need to come in in case of an emergency.
Again, though, lawmakers aren’t going to recommend those changes due to political pressure, so Cochran said it will be up to groups like the business community and organized labor who came together to reform term limits in the last election cycle.
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