WASHINGTON — With his term in the U.S. House ending and the Democrat replacing him bringing in his own staff, former Republican Rep. Chip Cravaack sharply increased his staffers' salaries during the last three months of 2012.
That’s according to a report from the Star Tribune’s Corey Mitchell today. In the last three months of the year, according to the Strib, Cravaack spent $354,000 on staff salaries, an 80 percent increase over his average quarterly payroll during the rest of the year.
Cravaack told the Strib he bumped up his team’s pay to help tide them over while they looked for work. With Democrat Rick Nolan moving in and bringing his own staff with him, Cravaack’s staff needed to find new jobs before January.
Such a move isn’t unheard of, and Cravaack wasn’t alone in doing it last year (though the average salary increase in his office was the third-highest in the House as whole, and good government advocates say such increases are rarely seen beyond very senior staffers). As the Strib reports:
Of the 20 House offices with the heftiest salary increases at the end of 2012, nearly all were members who retired or lost elections. Retiring New York Democratic Rep. Gary Ackerman had a 100.8 percent payroll increase from the first to the fourth quarter of 2012, the highest in Congress. Todd Akin of Missouri, Cravaack and Allen West of Florida, all Republicans, rounded out the top four. (Akin ran for a Senate seat and lost, while Cravaack and West failed in re-election attempts.)
Cravaack’s office spending was always a minor nagging problem for him, primarily a hefty car lease that eventually found its way into attack ads run against him during his re-election campaign. His office justified the lease ($1,000 a month) by saying he spent less running his congressional office as a whole than other members in Congress, which is true — Cravaack spent about $1.21 million running his office in 2012, the second-smallest total among Minnesotans, according to House records (Collin Peterson spent $1.15 million, and all offices spent less than $1.3 million).
But a re-election defeat can go a long way toward shoring up staffers’ salaries — according the Strib, Cravaack spent the least on salaries among Minnesotans in 2011, while only Betty McCollum and Keith Ellison spent more in 2012.
Devin Henry can be reached at dhenry@minnpost.com.