INDIANAPOLIS – Gov. Mike Pence is now the highest-paid Indiana governor ever – with a salary of $111,687.
He doesn’t even make the most in his own office, though. His chief of staff brings in about $125,000. And many other state and legislative employees also have higher salaries.
When Gov. Mitch Daniels took office in 2005, his salary was $95,000.
Legislators later changed the law to increase the governor’s salary at the beginning of every term by the average amount of increases received by state employees over the previous four years.
State Auditor Tim Berry said Daniels was eligible to take a pay raise in 2009, with the beginning of his second term, to $107,881. But that was a time when state employee salaries had been frozen, and he and other statewide officials announced they would not take an increase while state employees were unable to receive a bump.
Employees then received an increase in 2011, so Daniels’ salary jumped in August of that year to more than $107,000.
This year, Pence’s salary was hiked by the amount of increases that state employees received over the past four years, so the current salary is now $111,687.88.
This will remain his salary throughout his four-year term in office.
A 2009 Council of State Governments report found the average governors’ salary nationwide is more than $131,000. The lowest was in Maine at $70,000. The highest was in California at $212,000, though it since has been slashed in budget cutting.
