State lawmakers are lining up today to reject the 5.5 percent automatic pay raise that Governor Deval Patrick set in motion, saying that with local communities facing drastic budget cuts and families facing job losses, they could not pad their own pockets at taxpayer expense.

Representative Viriato deMacedo, the ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, said he would donate the raise of $3,203 to a Plymouth food pantry, which lost $150,000 in funding in the last round of budget cuts.

"The pressure on them is that much greater, and they have a lot more people visiting them," deMacedo said today of the food pantry. "It is an opportunity for me to assist the people in my community who have been hardest hit in this economic downturn."

DeMacedo, who said he also donated his 2003 raise because it came during an economic downturn, was not the only lawmaker refusing to take the money. A spokeswoman for House Minority Leader Bradley Jones said he would not accept the pay hike. Representatives Karyn Polito, a Republican from Shrewsbury, and Democrat Garrett Bradley of Hingham are also planning to reject the raise, according to State House News Service.

Representative Harriet L. Stanley, a West Newbury Democrat, said she, too, would donate her raise to charity.

“I’m going to make sure the money stays in the seven communities I represent,” Stanley said. “Times are tough out there. They are really tough. And I’m just shocked that any index would give us a 5.5 percent increase. I thought we might actually take a cut.”

House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi defended the increase today in a statement, saying it was the product of a constitutional amendment approved by voters in 1998 designed to remove legislative pay decisions from the political process. Lawmakers receive a pay raise or cut every two years that is equal to the fluctuation in the state's median household income as determined by the governor.

"This year, it will increase modestly," DiMasi said of legislative pay. "Next term, we have already been told to expect a pay cut.”

Early Wednesday evening, Patrick sent a letter to state Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill asserting that the state's median income increased 5.5 percent, setting in motion a pay hike of that amount. Lawmakers will see their base pay increase from $58,237 to $61,440.

The state Republican Party blasted the increase in pay, with GOP spokesman Barney Keller saying in a statement that "it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to calculate … that the amount of the raise should be exactly zero.”

Patrick sidestepped any comment on the pay raise on WTKK-FM’s “Ask the Governor” show this afternoon, saying he didn’t want to be “high-handed” in his treatment of lawmakers.

Asked what he would tell a lawmaker who wanted to know whether to accept the pay raise, he said, “My answer to him or her is to him or her and not to the general public.”

He said he could see both sides of the issue, noting that he and Lieutenant Governor Timothy P. Murray had said “not now” to a proposed pay raise in June. “I also appreciate that legislators don’t make very much money," Patrick said.

January 8, 2009
Boston Globe
by John C. Drake, Globe staff

Michael Levenson, Martin Finucane, and Andrew Ryan of the Globe staff contributed to this report.