The state Public Service Commission looks to add seven new positions with additional salaries totaling $433,570 under the proposed fiscal year 2009 budget ? help the PSC says has been a long time coming.
The budget would add three “PSC commission adviser” positions to the two already included under last year?s budget. The three new positions will total $218,650 in additional salary, or $72,883 per position, if divided equally.
The commission under state law has the ability to hire personal staff members for each commissioner for expert analysis and staff functions, PSC spokeswoman LaWanda Edwards said in a statement. The five total positions would work under the PSC?s four commissioners and its chairman.
“These positions at the PSC are currently not funded,” said Edwards.
Two other PSC positions, titled in the proposed budget as “program manager IV,” would be added to the one existing position at an additional salary cost of $155,706, or $77,853 each if divided equally. Two new paralegal positions are also included at a cost of $59,214, or $29,607 each.
The $433,570 in new salaried positions comes a year after the PSC chairman salary was increased to $188,700 from $129,503, and the four commissioner?s salaries to $127,500 from $86,582. The two-year salary increase for the PSC totals $533,685.
Del. Patrick McDonough, R-Baltimore-Harford, said he would not attempt to block funding for the new positions. McDonough said earlier this week he would introduce an amendment to stop any further pay increases to the PSC commissioners, who received a 46 percent pay bump last year.
“I think they?re understaffed, there?s a need for their own experts,” he said. “One of the problems is lack of expertise [in Annapolis] for the people trying to protect consumers, and a wealth of misinformation on the part of the big energy companies.”
