For a person earning the state’s average salary – $29,973 in 2004 – it might be a tough sell to say the governor needs a pay raise.

But he does.

Maine’s governor earns a salary of $70,000 a year, less than any other state chief executive in the country. There are perks. The governor can live in the Blaine House, has a staff and driver, and receives a $30,000 expense account.

Yet it’s a paltry payday for the toughest job in the state.

A bill, which will be discussed Friday by the State and Local Government Committee, would raise the governor’s pay to about $220,000 a year, which would catapult Maine’s governor to the top of the charts. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Gary Moore, says the suggested pay is just a starting point. That’s good.

The governor’s current salary is plainly too low, but $220,000 is much too high, maybe double what would be more appropriate.

Gov. Baldacci opposes the idea of increasing the governor’s salary, even though the legislation would not apply to him regardless of the outcome of this November’s election.

Seventy-thousand dollars is nothing to sneeze at. It’s more than double the 2003 per capita wage of $28,166 in Androscoggin County, $23,942 in Franklin and $24,166 in Oxford.

Serving as governor shouldn’t be a path to riches, but at the same time the salary should reflect the seriousness and difficulty of the job, which is a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week, stress-a-thon.

Unless the salary is improved, there’s a danger that the job will appeal only to those people with great personal wealth and those who are willing to forgo what the market would pay for their skills.