While some businesses struggled to give employees slight raises for the cost of living last year, the five members of the state?s Public Service Commission Gov. Martin O?Malley said would stop electricity rate spikes got a 46 percent pay bump.
The commission may not see any salary boost this year if an amendment to the governor?s proposed budget by Del. Patrick McDonough, R-Baltimore-Harford, passes.
McDonough said Thursday he will amend the budget during House deliberations. One would block any raises for the PSC commissioners, and the second would divert any such funding to the Office of People?s Counsel, the state agency which represents residential utility customers. A salary increase is not currently included in the governor?s proposed budget for fiscal year 2009.
“I think there is a very strong and growing support [in Annapolis] for the idea that consumers in Maryland are getting ripped off by Constellation and [Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.], and the PSC are not doing anything about it,” McDonough said.
Rates for Baltimore Gas and Electric customers shot up 50 percent last year, driven by the company?s move into the wholesale market. The PSC said this week it expects rates to increase by another 5.5 percent this summer.
“We?re insulted by the decision of the governor to linethe pockets of his henchmen,” said Leo Burroughs Jr., chairman of the Maryland Coalition to Stop the BGE Rate Hike Now. “Although we have a billion-dollar deficit, we?re told, he?s able to find money to prop up his buddies.”
For fiscal 2008, beginning last June, the PSC chairman?s salary was $188,700, up from $129,503 during fiscal 2007, according to the governor?s proposed fiscal 2009 budget. The salary for the PSC?s four other commissioners in fiscal 2008 was $127,500, up from $86,582 the year before.
Neither salary item shows an increase in the governor?s proposed budget for fiscal 2009.
The increases came during a time of transition for the PSC. O?Malley made good on a campaign promise to force out then-PSC Chairman Kenneth Schisler, replacing him with Steven Larsen in March, and appointing two other members in March and April.
O?Malley spokesman Rick Abbruzzese said the state Department of Budget and Management determined the need for a salary increase for the chairman and commissioner positions during the search for Schisler?s replacement.
“We looked at competitive salaries of surrounding states, and what we found was the salary structure as it existed [in Maryland] was lacking,” he said. “It difficult to recruit top talent at the salary structure that existed.”
