Starting in 2024 with the Ninth Osage Nation Congress, the 12-member elected officials will start receiving a $77,000 annual salary plus allowance for the two legislative leaders.
During the June 16 special session, the Seventh ON Congress voted 9-2 to pass bill ONCA 22-65 (sponsored by Congressman RJ Walker) to increase the Congressional member salary from $65,000 to $77,000 per year plus insurance benefits. In addition, the bill also sets an annual expense allowance of $3,000 each for the Speaker and Second Speaker positions.
Walker said the Congress member salary increases will not take effect until 2024 citing the Constitution’s language stating “any raise in compensation to take place for the following Congress would have to take place prior to a General Election – We are after the (2022) General Election, so that’s why that would be the case.”
Those elected to the Eighth ON Congress in the June 6, 2022, General Election will take their oaths on July 9 and will not receive the salary increases in ONCA 22-65. The bill received initial consideration in the Congressional Appropriations Committee held during the one-day special session.
“The compensation for Congress was set in 2006. Some might say that’s not right, it was $56,000, but there was a $9,000 stipend, so it was $65,000. That was 16 years ago, I feel like an increase in our Legislative Branch salary 18 years later is warranted, justified. There’s been an increase in compensation across the board in all levels of government,” Walker said.
Walker said he did look at other tribal government official’s pay levels and noted their way of business meetings are different from Osages, as well as tribal membership size differences. “I think if it’s going to happen, now is the time to do it,” Walker said, recalling as an individual, that when he first ran for Congress in 2012, if the salary was lower than it is, he wouldn’t have ran for office.
“I feel like an increase in compensation raises the bar, it raises the level of those who are willing to put themselves out there to run and that benefits the Nation in my opinion,” said Walker, who is leaving Congressional office on July 9 after winning the 2022 election for Assistant Principal Chief.
Congressman Billy Keene said he supports the bill, noting he asked various individuals if they’d run for Congress and the question and concerns about salary entered the conversations. Keene said people told him they were not willing to leave their jobs with the salaries they presently make, so he believed an increase will make the Congress position “more appealable because of families and (ongoing) inflation.”
Congressional Speaker Angela Pratt said she considered pros and cons of the salary increase and noted through the years, some Congress members have held outside employment in addition to their Congress salary and some have made Congress their full-time job. Citing lack of rules on the amount of time Congress members must spend on their legislative work, Pratt said she did not support the proposed salary increase.
Congressional Budget Analyst Jordan Fraser told the committee, the salary increase is an 18.5% increase from the current pay figure.
The discussion and salary increase consideration also comes after the Congress approved a 10% COLA adjustment in pay for ON government employees under the merit system during the 2022 Hun-Kah Session due to the inflation situation impacting prices of countless goods and services.
ONCA 22-65 passed 9-2 with “no” votes from Pratt and Congresswoman Alice Goodfox and one absence that day from Congressman Eli Potts. Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear signed the bill into law after the special session ended.
