HARRISBURG -- When is an increase in salary not a pay raise? When it's a cost-of-living adjustment.

In 2005, state legislators raised a statewide uproar when they voted themselves raises of 16 to 33 percent, along with raises for state judges and some members of Gov. Ed Rendell's administration. The Legislature later canceled its own raises and those for the executive branch, but the Supreme Court upheld the judicial raises.

However, under a 1995 law, state officials continue to get cost-of-living adjustments every Dec. 1. The salary increases are based on the rise in the Consumer Price Index (the inflation rate) during the previous 12 months in the Philadelphia area, and that usually works out to 3 or 4 percent.

Because of this COLA law, a rank-and-file lawmaker's annual salary has risen from $69,647 in 2005 to $72,187 in 2006, to $73,614 in 2007, to $76,163 in 2008, to $78,300 in 2009. With a 3 percent increase on Dec. 1, it would go above $80,000.

State Rep. Marguerite Quinn, R-Bucks, is trying to prevent that with a bill she introduced yesterday.

"We have an unemployment rate approaching 9 percent in Pennsylvania, and many people who still have jobs have taken pay cuts," Ms. Quinn said. "It is common sense to suspend the COLA for legislators during these tough economic times. How can we accept a pay increase during a year when we have cut so much from the budget that so many others must do with less or with nothing at all?"

She also noted that national economic conditions are so dismal that for the first time in more than three decades the federal government will not make cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security payments.

"If Pennsylvania's elderly citizens are expected to go without a Social Security COLA this year, then lawmakers should be expected to do the same," Ms. Quinn said.

House Speaker Keith McCall now earns the highest salary in the House, $122,000; the Senate president pro tem, Sen. Joe Scarnati, also would earn that sum except that he is also lieutenant governor, which earns him $147,000. County judges now earn $162,000, and Mr. Rendell receives $175,000. Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald Castille gets $192,000.

The raises for the judges and executive branch members take effect Jan. 1

Some citizen protesters, including Eric Epstein of Rock the Capital -- formed in 2005 to fight the pay raise -- and Gene Stilp from Taxpayers and Ratepayers United -- who used an inflatable pink pig to oppose the 2005 raise -- want the Legislature to cancel the Dec. 1 cost-of-living adjustment, but that seems unlikely.

"No one should be rewarded for creating a large budget deficit and holding state citizens hostage for 101 days" before finally adopting the 2009-10 budget, Mr. Epstein said. "Repealing [the COLA law] is an opportunity for legislators to do the right thing and put the interests of the state ahead of their wallet."

In a related matter, other activist groups yesterday called for the first constitutional convention since 1968 with a goal of reducing the size of the Legislature, switching to appointed appellate judges and other steps to give voters greater control over state government.

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