HARRISBURG -- Much to the consternation of many Pennsylvania taxpayers, Gov. Ed Rendell signed legislation yesterday raising state legislators' base salary by 16 percent to $81,000 a year.

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The law also gives considerably larger raises to more than 100 House and Senate members in various leadership posts, topping out at $145,463 a year for House Speaker John Perzel and Senate President Pro Tem Robert Jubelirer.

"This is good legislation," Rendell said, "because, once and for all, it takes away from the Legislature the power to grant all subsequent pay raises for the judiciary, for the executive branch and for the Legislature."

The state officials' raises will be linked to a percentage of their equivalent federal officials. Legislators will receive a base pay of 50 percent of a congressman's $162,000, or $81,000 a year.

"This legislation frees the [state] judiciary from depending on the Legislature to decide when and if judges will receive a pay increase -- the very Legislature on whose actions the courts sit in judgment," Rendell said.

"I also believe that high-ranking officials and cabinet secretaries in the executive branch are seriously underpaid," he added.

He has said in recent months that it's been difficult to attract some of the high-caliber cabinet members he's sought, especially in the educational field, because state salaries are comparatively low.

Rendell has praised legislators for approving some key elements of the new $24.3 billion state budget, such as restorations of cuts in Medical Assistance to the poor and Growing Greener environmental programs. But he insisted he didn't use the pay raises as a "quid pro quo" to get what he wanted from the Legislature.

Nonetheless, all legislators will make out nicely under the new pay structure, which contains a base increase of 16 percent in the current legislative salary of $69,647.

But legislators who hold various leadership posts will make considerably more. And there are a lot of leadership jobs, including committee chairmen and vice chairmen in both the House and Senate, plus appropriations committee heads, policy chairs for Democratic and Republican parties, political party "whips" (who round up votes) and floor leaders make considerably more.

Perzel and Jubelirer currently make $108,724, so they're getting a 34 percent raise. The second-highest posts, House and Senate majority and minority leaders, now make $100,911, but will rise to $134,771, also a 34 percent raise.

House Democratic Leader H. William DeWeese of Waynesburg, who'll be jumping to $134,771, said legislators deserve the hefty raises.

"This assignment is 24/7 and we are at work when we are at Giant Eagle or the Friday night high school football game," DeWeese said moments after the Legislature had approved the raises in the dead of the night at 2 a.m. Thursday.

"This assignment goes on without [stop] month in, month out," he said. "The enhancement of our professional [pay] will draw a high-minded and intelligent cadre of younger politicos in the years ahead.

"I'm confident that youngsters leaving Duquesne, Pitt and Waynesburg College will be running for the state Legislature 10 or 15 years from now, and these enhanced salary levels will be an allurement."

Because of the higher salaries for leadership jobs -- and because there are so many positions of leadership -- about 200 of the 253 members of the Legislature will make more than the base salary of $81,000.

All 50 senators have some sort of leadership title, so none of them will make just the base salary. The average new salary in the Senate is estimated at about $98,500.

Also, because most House members have added titles, the average House salary is estimated at about $87,900.

The new legislative pay scale starts at $81,000, based on 50 percent of congressional pay of $162,000 a year.

But then additional percentages are added, starting with 52.5 percent of Congress pay for committee vice chairmen and subcommittee chairman (or $85,000), 55 percent for committee chairmen ($89,100), plus even more money for party whips, policy chairman, caucus secretaries, etc, leading up to the top leaders.

"To peg our salary at one-half of a congressional salary does not seem exorbitant to me," DeWeese insisted.