AUGUSTA (AP) – A Standish lawmaker has submitted a bill that would increase the governor’s salary and make him the highest-paid state employee.

The governor’s annual salary, which is the lowest in the nation, was last increased in 1987 when it jumped from $35,000 to $70,000.

Republican Rep. Gary Moore has submitted a bill, scheduled for a public hearing Friday, that would make the governor’s annual salary 10 percent higher than that of any other official in state government.

If the bill passes, the governor’s pay would jump to more than $220,000, or 10 percent higher than $200,850 salary of the chancellor of University of Maine System, according to the Legislature’s fiscal office.

“Seventy-thousand dollars for a chief executive is an abysmal salary,” Moore said.

The idea of raising the governor’s salary has some support from legislative leaders in both parties – but not necessarily the way Moore has proposed. Moore said there may be better ways to set the governor’s salary, and he offered his bill as a starting point for discussion.

But Gov. John Baldacci does not support the bill, said his spokeswoman Crystal Canney. Baldacci would not be affected by the raise, even if re-elected. Senate President Beth Edmonds, D-Freeport, believes that any governor should be better paid that what Maine pays its top official. “The amount of money for the governor’s salary is laughable,” she said.

But Rep. Christopher Barstow, the House chairman of the legislative committee that will consider the bill, said he doesn’t think he can support it.

“We went two years without raising state employee salaries,” said Barstow, D-Gorham. “Even though we are moving forward, I still don’t think we are in a position of increasing legislators’ or the governor’s salary.”

Joining Maine at the low end of the pay scale are Arkansas ($75,296), Nebraska and Tennessee ($85,000), and North Dakota ($85,506), according to The Book of the States 2005.

The highest-paid governors come from New York ($179,000), Michigan ($177,000) and California ($175,000).

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Information from: Kennebec Journal, http://www.kjonline.com/

AP-ES-01-21-06 1219EST