Commissioners of public lands. SECTION 7. The secretary of state, treasurer and attorney general, shall constitute a board of commissioners for the sale of the school and university lands and for the investment of the funds arising therefrom. Any two of said commissioners shall be a quorum for the transaction of all business pertaining to the duties of their office.

With conservatives now concerned about the Department of Justice’s involvement with the Concealed Carry regulatory process, will the Attorney General become the next position to become a Gubernatorial appointee?

No elected Attorney General? It’s not that uncommon. 7 states do not have elected attorney generals, including New Jersey. Not only will getting rid of the Secretary of State and Treasurer end up costing Wisconsin taxpayers more, but it could lead to the elimination of an elected Attorney General as well.

From a fiscal conservative standpoint – the logic of more elected officials at first seems counterintuitive. Why do we need more elected officials getting paid by the taxpayers? We tend to see elected officials as part of the bureaucracy, and bureaucracy is bad.

However – there are significant differences between elected officials and appointed bureaucrats. One is pay – in Menomonee Falls the Village President makes less than $10,000 per year. The Village Administrator makes over $100,000 a year. Both people have important functions, and while the Administrator may spend 60+ hours a week at his job, the President is probably spending 20+ hours in Village business. Hourly – the pay advantage goes to the Administrator. It seems that being an elected official is a “intangible bonus” in lieu of compensation.

On the other hand, there is another effect – WisTax found that the more elected county board members – the lower the spending was, as much as $10 less spending per resident per additional elected official. While this isn’t directly applicable to statewide offices, it does raise a question – is cutting elected offices good for the state?

AJR 26 is the proposal to abolish the Secretary of State and the State Treasurer. 20 Representatives and 3 Senators are cosponsoring the proposal.

Wisconsin’s State Treasurer makes $68,556 – as does the Secretary of State.

This is a relatively low salary compared to other states (Nebraska – $85,000, Rhode island – $99,214). More importantly, it is low compared to the appointed offices.

Take the Office of the Commissioner of Railroads ($80,000-$125,000). The department has 6 employees (4 less than the Treasurers Office). The Commissioner of Railroads salary, like all other “administrator” salaries, is determined by Wis. Stat. 20.923. 20.923 creates ten “Executive Salary Groups” (ESGs) to “establish a consistent and equitable salary setting mechanism for all elected officials, appointed state agency heads, division administrators and other executive-level unclassified positions.”

“Administrators” are classified into the ESGs that have defined salary ranges. ESG 1 includes positions such as the Executive Secretary of the Art Board, and the State Law Library Librarian. These positions tend to be not widely known. ESG 5 is the Railroad Commissioner, State Fair Park Director, and other more well known positions. ESG 8 includes powerful positions such as the Secretary of Administration (with a department budget of over $1 billion), Secretary of Health Services ($8.7 billion), and the Chancellor of UW-Madison. ESG 9 is only for the President of the entire UW System. No appointed official is in ESG 10.

Elected officials salaries are based on the ESG, but instead of having a floating salary range, they receive a fixed salary based on the ESG group minimum. The Secretary of State, and the State Treasurer is assigned to ESG 1 and his salary is “15.4% of the minimum of the salary range” for ESG 1 – which works out to $68,556. The State Superintendent of Public Instruction gets 27.4% above the minimum for ESG 7 or around $120,000. The Governor gets 21.6% above the minimum for ESG 10 which makes him over $140,000.

If the Treasurer were no longer to be elected, the functions would still continue presumably under the Department of Administration. Most likely these 10 FTE employees would need a supervisor, who would likely be assigned an ESG. Even if the ESG was just ESG 1 – the person who would replace the State Treasurer could make just under $100,000.

Abolishing the Treasurer would not save any money – rather it would give someone a raise of about $30,000.

If we wanted to save money – we could consolidate departments rather than eliminate elected officials. What if we gave the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions (department head makes $90k-$140k), to the State Treasurer, and the State Historical Society (director makes $195,000) to the Secretary of State? This may not be the best alignment – but a framework like this can help us come to a better answer.

BTW for some fun trivia: any guesses on who is the highest paid state employee in Wisconsin? The Governor isn’t ($137,092), nor is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court ($152,495). It’s not even any of the 12 executive staff members of the State Investment Board ($307,007 to $560,461). It’s UW Football Coach Brett Bielema ($2.5 million).

UPDATE: They’ve been found!