AUGUSTA (AP) – For the second time this month, a legislative committee has scaled back a proposed pay raise for Maine’s governor.

And this time, it also delayed the effective date until 2011, when the increase wouldn’t benefit any of the candidates now seeking the office.

The current annual salary of $70,000 is the lowest paid to any of the nation’s 50 governors. The original legislation would have raised it to $220,000, but the State and Local Government Committee initially lowered it to $150,000 and trimmed it Monday to $102,000.

Because Gov. John Baldacci, who is running for a second term, still intends to veto any pay hike, the measure would need to win a two-thirds majority in the Legislature.

At the committee’s meeting, Senate Chairwoman Elizabeth Schneider, D-Penobscot, told the bill’s sponsor, Gary Moore, R-Standish, that she and many legislators will vote against it because of the mistaken public perception that it would benefit Baldacci.

Suggesting that the issue be placed before a bipartisan commission that could also look at the salaries of the legislators and judges, Schneider urged Moore to abandon his fight.

“You will talk until you are blue in the face, but it will go down in flames on the floor,” she said.

But Moore rejected the idea of a commission, saying to do so would confirm the public’s perception that the Legislature is afraid to deal with issues.

“The pay of our governor is so abysmal, it is so low, that it must be addressed now,” he said. “For us to give this over to a commission is a complete capitulation to the perception that we will not do our job.”

The committee was deadlocked 4-4 on the proposal, with five members absent. Moore said most of the absent members will support the bill.

For 19 years, the governor’s salary has been set at $70,000, which is roughly $27,000 less than the typical city or town manager of a municipality with more than 20,000 residents.

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Information from: Portland Press Herald, https://www.pressherald.com

AP-ES-02-28-06 0218EST