Cheryl Myers didn’t have to take a pay cut last month when she became Oregon’s acting secretary of state. She still gets $238,164 a year, her salary as deputy secretary.

In contrast, the job of secretary of state pays a mere $77,000. Now-disgraced Secretary of State Shemia Fagan infamously used that paltry pay as justification for taking a cannabis consulting gig that paid $10,000 a month and also teaching a “Voting Rights and Modern Democracy” seminar at the Willamette University law school.

Myers became acting secretary of state after Fagan’s May 8 resignation. Because Myers’ official job classification remains unchanged, she keeps her current salary. She is among 169 employees in the agency who out-earn the big boss – even though an elected secretary of state is responsible for 240 employees and a planned $111.7 million budget for 2023-25.

When the story first broke about Fagan’s questionable moonlighting, I thought her $77,000 salary must be a misprint. Could the pay really be that low for a job with huge responsibility over elections, government audits, corporations, state historical records and state land decisions?

Blame the Oregon Legislature. Since 2014, salaries have been fixed at $77,000 for secretary of state, state treasurer and labor commissioner; $82,200 for attorney general; and $98,600 for governor.

The old saying of “You get what you pay for” comes to mind.

Oregonians are cheap. This is how our salaries compared with other states’ pay in 2021, according to “The Book of the States” from the Council of State Governments:

• Lowest for attorney general, whose salaries elsewhere range from $90,000 in Arizona to $210,000 in New York.

• Fourth-lowest for governor. Maine paid $70,000; Colorado, $92,700; and Arizona, $95,000. New York was highest at $225,000. Meanwhile, Idaho – which, by the way, some Eastern Oregonians want to join – paid its governor $132,302.

• Third-lowest for secretary of state and for state treasurer, topping only Arizona’s $70,000 and Wisconsin’s $72,551. Tennessee paid the most, $209,520.

• Second-lowest for labor administrator, edging West Virginia’s $70,000.

The Associated Press this week reported it would take the median worker 186 years to earn as much as the median CEO at a S&P 500 company received in one year: $14.8 million in 2022.

In Oregon, it’s the other way around. Absurdly low salaries can make statewide elected office unattractive to talented individuals who earn far more in the private or nonprofit sectors, or even in other government jobs.

Gov. Tina Kotek has 66 staff members in her office. Of those, 40 earn more than she – even though the governor is responsible for 42,000 state workers and a projected $33.7 billion general fund and Lottery budget for 2023-25

Across state government, a couple thousand or so workers earn more than Kotek, including Rex Kim, who has a base pay of $526,644 as chief investment officer at the Oregon Treasury. Kim is the highest-paid person in the Treasury, but 141 of the 188 employees earn more than State Treasurer Tobias Read.

At the Department of Justice, 648 employees are paid more than Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Udland carries the top salary of $245,688 – nearly three times as much as her boss. Meanwhile, Rosenblum is responsible for about 1,500 employees and a current two-year budget that approaches $800 million.

And at the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, Commissioner Christina Stephenson will be in charge of a $47,383,322 budget and 142 employees during 2023-25.

“But wait!” you might be thinking in response to the preceding paragraph. “I thought the walkout by most Republican and Independent senators has stopped the state budget process.” 

Only action by the full Senate is stalled. The aforementioned figures for 2023-25 are what legislative budget panels have recommended.

Oregon is financially weird. The Legislature does not act on an overall budget, even though the governor is required to propose an overall budget. Instead, lawmakers deal with separate agency budget bills. 

In other words, legislators create the jigsaw pieces but don’t put the pieces together that present the full picture. (This disaggregated system has frustrated many financial folks, including former Sen. Alan DeBoer, R-Ashland, who sought a more-business-like approach.)

There should be sufficient time on June 25, the constitutional deadline for this year’s Legislature to adjourn, to pass the remaining budgets – but only if the boycotting senators return that day as promised, and if the majority Democrats let that happen.

The real action on agency budgets occurs in the Joint Ways & Means Committee and its subcommittees, which have continued working. Floor debates rarely change the expected outcome, especially on budget bills. In fact, as final adjournment nears, lawmakers often speed the process by forgoing floor speeches in favor of simply saying, “Good bill. Should pass.”

However, one idea likely to die amid the boycott is creation of a state commission to study elected officials’ salaries. Senate Majority Leader Kate Lieber, D-Beaverton, and Senate Republican Leader Tim Knopp of Bend favor the idea. But the pair appear irreparably estranged. (Yes, in comparison, Congress and President Joe Biden have proved more functional amid their negotiations to raise the debt ceiling.)

On her own, Gov. Kotek presumably could create a state task force to study salaries. But her staff on Thursday reiterated that she wants the Legislature to do it.

We’ll be left to wonder, “Why are Oregonians so cheap?”