SC lawmakers set for an $18,000 a year pay increase if they approve final budget
A lawmaker pay raise will be included in the final budget proposal when the general assembly votes on the final spending plan.
The budget conference committee voted to include a $1,500 a month in-district compensation increase in the 2025-26 spending plan. It would amount to a $18,000 raise for lawmakers. The pay increase was included in the $14.7 billion general fund spending plan approved Wednesday by a budget conference committee.
The final spending plan now goes to the General Assembly for its approval. Lawmakers are expected to return to Columbia on May 28 to vote on the budget.
The pay raise was far from unanimous when it was first voted on during the Senate floor debate. The proviso passed 24-15 with Senate Finance Chairman Harvey Peeler, R-Cherokee, and Senate President Thomas Alexander, R-Oconee, among those voting against the increase. They were both members of the six-member conference committee.
But when the vote on the conference committee occurred, Peeler and Alexander voted in favor.
“We were here to advocate for the Senate position. The Senate spoke for the in-district expense money, and so I felt honor bound to abide by the Senate,” Peeler said.
Proposed provisos, or one-year laws that direct how state money is spent and attached to the budget, that were in only one version of the budget need the votes of at least two House conferees and two Senate conferees to make it into the final budget.
The increase is meant to help lawmakers keep up with the cost of inflation and members of the General Assembly have to dip into their own wallets to cover expenses while in-district such as holding town halls, sending out mailers or paying for fuel to travel around the area they represent.
Although some General Assembly members agreed there’s a need to raise pay for lawmakers, they said it would be better for it to go through a traditional hearing process that allows for public comment as opposed to a raise being slipped in during a floor debate with little discussion.
Lawmakers’ in-district compensation was set in 1995 and hasn’t been adjusted. Increasing lawmaker pay has been seen as a way to encourage more people to run and to increase the quality of candidates. Lawmakers are only paid a $10,400 salary and a $1,000 a month in-district stipend.
The House did not include a similar provision when it finalized its spending plan, and it may lead to some push back from some House members.
“Who needs a bill to give lawmakers a raise when you can just slip it into the budget?” state Rep. Jay Kilmartin, R-Lexington, posted on social media Wednesday shortly after the conference committee decision. He is a member of the hard-line conservative House Freedom Caucus.
House Ways and Means Chairman Bruce Bannister, R-Greenville, said it was just time for the compensation to be addressed.
“I’m sure there will be detractors who say addressing something that has been hanging out for 30 years (that) this was the wrong time, but that’s the way everything is in state government. It’s always the wrong time to do it if you do it now,” Bannister said.
Gov. Henry McMaster has yet to say whether he would support the pay increase, but acknowledged lawmakers are only compensated for ‘part-time’ work
“I know they work hard. Some people don’t see that work going on, but I do. There (are) many times late at night and all throughout the year,” McMaster told reporters in April. “If they’re working at home, they have a home office, (or) an office in their business, I think they’re entitled to be reimbursed for all of those expenses and that’s the nature of this.”
This story was originally published May 22, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
