Missouri's state government employees are the lowest-paid in the nation.
But Missouri lawmakers and statewide office holders are closer to the middle - when their pay is compared with similar jobs in the other 49 states.
And some Mid-Missouri lawmakers aren't thrilled with the Citizens' Committee on Compensation for Elected Officials' recommendation - discussed last week and expected to be released, officially, this week - to raise Missouri's top elected officials' salaries by 8 to 11 percent in each of the next two state business years.
State Rep. Jay Barnes, R-Jefferson City, said last week he'll vote no.
"This is an insult to state employees," Barnes said, "(who) have seen steady, but modest pay raises the last four years. But it's not enough.
"We shouldn't be at the bottom. Legislators don't need a raise, and shouldn't get one unless and until we raise state employee pay out of the basement."
State Sen. Mike Kehoe, R-Jefferson City, agreed.
"While this independent commission is free to make recommendations as they see fit," Kehoe said Friday, in an email, "I believe that there are far more pressing needs to be addressed than increasing the salaries of elected officials and the legislature.
"Before the governor, other elected officials, or the legislature get a raise, we need a plan in place and in effect that ensures our state employees are being compensated in a manner that is competitive with their peers in other states."
Kehoe and Barnes both serve on the Legislature's Joint Interim Committee on State Employee Pay, chaired by Rep. Mike Bernskoetter, R-Jefferson City, that has wanted to hire a consultant to look at the state employees' total compensation package, and how pay-plus-benefits compares with state workers in other states - so the Legislature can improve the conditions for Missouri government employees.
But Gov. Jay Nixon in June vetoed the $300,000 in the state budget that would have paid for that study.
Barnes has promised to introduce a resolution to block the proposed raises for lawmakers and the statewide elected officials, and so has Rep. Mark Parkinson, R-St. Charles.
In a news release Thursday announcing his plans, Parkinson said: "My constituents didn't send me to Jefferson City because they felt I needed a comfortable living, nicer clothes, or a bigger house.
"They sent me to Jefferson City because I promised to make the same responsible choices with our state budget that I would make with my own household budget."
Like Kehoe, Parkinson said Missouri government "has a number of priorities that need to be funded every year. Finding over $1.3 million dollars so that we can give pay raises to our statewide elected officials and our legislators is not one of those priorities."
An Office of Administration spokeswoman told the Associated Press last week that state officials haven't determined, yet, what the increases would cost if implemented.
If lawmakers don't block the proposal by Feb. 1, the Constitution requires the increases to go into effect automatically, as part of the new budget year that begins July 1.
At least two-thirds of the members in each chamber - 109 in the House and 23 in the Senate - must vote against the recommendation in order to block it.
So, resolutions like the ones promised by Barnes and Parkinson are the key to any lawmaker's desire to stop the pay proposals.
Voters approved the Citizens Compensation Commission in November 1994, after the General Assembly put the proposal on the ballot, by a 231,342-vote margin, with 57.37 percent of nearly 1.569 million votes cast in favor, and only 42.63 percent opposed.
At the time, supporters said the commission would make professional recommendations for salaries, based on comparisons with similar jobs in other states and in the private sector - ending the Legislature's political fights each year over their own pay and the salaries of the statewide elected officials and the courts system.
Many opponents saw the plan as a way for lawmakers to avoid the debate over pay raises for top officials.
"Missouri is not Washington D.C.," Kehoe said last week. "We don't just give ourselves raises when there are other pressing matters that need to be addressed.
"Things like state employee wages, education, fixing our roads and many others are far more critical than salary increases for elected officials and members of the legislature."
Senate President Pro Tem Tom Dempsey, R-St. Charles, told the AP he'd rather send money to "the front lines" after the Nixon administration removed more jobs from the state workforce this year.
But state Rep. Mike Colona, D-St. Louis, said people who are not independently wealthy might struggle with the current annual salary - $35,915 a year.
"We lose a lot of good people who could make a big difference," Colona said.
The last time lawmakers and statewide officials received a pay increase was in 2009.
State employees received no raises between 2008 and July 2012, when they received a 2 percent pay raise - if they earned less than $70,000 a year.
Another $500/year pay raise came at the beginning of this year.
And lawmakers OK'd a 1 percent raise, to begin Jan. 1, 2015 - but the governor withheld that money, $5,595,060 through June 30, last June.
Unlike a veto, where the appropriation is erased from the budget unless lawmakers override the veto, the governor still could release the withheld funds - if the administration thinks revenues will be enough to pay for the release, or if, under the constitutional amendment voters approved Nov. 4, at least two-thirds of the Legislature vote to force the money to be spent.