Judges: CHRISTINE O. GREGOIRE, Attorney General JAMES K. PHARRIS, Senior Assistant Attorney General
Filed Date: 1/13/1999
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 7/6/2016
Honorable Mary Margaret Haugen State Senator, 10th District Chair, Municipal Research Council 1200 5th Avenue, Suite 1300 Seattle, Washington 98101-1159
Dear Senator Haugen:
By letter previously acknowledged, you asked for our opinion on the following question:
Question: The state constitution prohibits midterm increases incompensation for elected municipal officers who set their owncompensation. If a person is elected to fill an unexpired term as a citycouncil member, and the compensation for the position had been increasedearlier in that term, is the newly elected council member eligible toreceive the increase during the remainder of the term?
The salary of any county, city, town, or municipal officers shall not be increased except as provided in section 1 of Article XXX or diminished after his election, or during his term of office. . . .
This provision, as reflected in its current text, was amended when article XXX of the constitution was adopted as amendment 54 in 1968. This latter provision provides in relevant part:
The compensation of all elective and appointive state, county, and municipal officers who do not fix their own compensation, . . . may be increased during their terms of office to the end that such officers and judges shall each severally receive compensation for their services in accordance with the law in effect at the time the services are being rendered. . . .
Constitution, art. XXX, § 1 (Emphasis added).
The effect of amendment 54, then, was to eliminate the prohibition against midterm changes in compensation for all officers except those who fix their own compensation. City councilmembers in this state have the power to fix their own compensation, however.1 As a result, they are still prohibited from receiving mid-term increases (or decreases) in their compensation.
Your question concerns what happens if a city council position falls vacant for some reason and someone is appointed and subsequently elected to fill the vacancy. As you point out in your letter, the early case of State ex rel. Wyrick v. Ritzville,
Although we have not had occasion to address this precise issue in a formal opinion, we have addressed this very issue in informal opinions, and we have addressed, in a formal opinion, the same principle with respect to a different office. On each occasion, we have found that the constitution prohibits any increase in salary during the term being served by an officer, even if the current incumbent is finishing (by election or appointment) a term to which another person had originally been elected. In AGO 1978 No. 3 (copy enclosed), we reached this conclusion as to the office of state senator, finding that any person appointed or elected to a state senate position who is serving an unexpired term is entitled to the compensation applicable to the position at the beginning of that term, notwithstanding the intervening special election. In the 1978 opinion, we referred to the Wyrick case, as well as to State ex rel. Hovey v. Clausen,
Although neither AGO 1978 No. 3 nor the informal opinions just cited discuss the position of city councilmember, we have in fact applied the same principle to city office in an informal opinion. In a letter opinion of 1967 (Letter to State Senator Nat Washington dated November 24, 1967, from Philip H. Austin, Assistant Attorney General) (copy enclosed), the writer specifically concluded that the constitution barred a councilmember elected to an unexpired term from any increase enacted during that term. In earlier years, we had applied the same rule to the position of county commissioner (Letter to Lowell B. Vail, Prosecuting Attorney for Grant County, dated August 3, 1940, by W.A. Toner, Assistant Attorney General). In a formal opinion, AGO 55-57 No. 332, we found that a public utility district commissioner serving an unexpired term was limited to the same salary as his predecessor.
Given this consistency of past advice, we see no reason to change interpretation now, and we reiterate the view that the constitutional limitation on salary changes attaches to the term served and not to the person serving a particular term in office. An earlier case, citing a parallel provision (article II, section 25), found that the purpose of these provisions is to provide candidates for office and the general public with stability and predictability as to the compensation of a public officer. See City of Everett v. Johnson,
We trust the foregoing will prove useful.
Very Truly Yours,
CHRISTINE O. GREGOIRE Attorney General
JAMES K. PHARRIS Senior Assistant Attorney General
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