It made news recently when Maine’s representative of the Khmer Rouge, also known as Mike Tipping, noticed that our Governor had not required any cut to his own pay or pension despite asking teachers to take a large cut in the form of increasing pension contributions from 7.65% to 9.65% of their gross salaries as well as getting fewer benefits when they retire.

AMGers, put in the odd position of defending a lack of government cuts despite insisting that our state is headed towards bankruptcy, nevertheless put up a brave fight. Some immediately noticed that Maine’s constitution does not allow pay changes to the Governor while he is serving.

His hands were tied!

Bullshit.

He could have just refunded the state, personally. He could donate the excess. He could cut pay for his next term, or the next governor. He could request a constitutional amendment allowing the Governor’s pay be decreased during his term, but not increased. There are, frankly, a billion things he could do but he hasn’t done any of them.

And prior Governors have been able to take pay cuts.

This made me wonder- Republicans love to tell us how overpaid teachers are and how we should make them “accountable.” If this is so important, why not make the Governor accountable in the same way? So on the behalf of Republican accountability-mongers everywhere let me suggest the outlines of a future bill known as the “Governor Accountability Act.”

The first thing to do is allow the Governor to be fired. Accountability for teachers means that politicians, school boards, and administrators have complete leeway to fire a teacher. Therefore, to equalize the situation for the Governor we must immediately implement a change to our Constitution to allow a recall election at any time.

That may lead to some slight chaos in our state government, between the constant recall petitions from one side or another and having a recall-fearing Governor make “election year decisions,” usually not the best ones, for his entire term. But this is no different than a teacher’s change in behavior when he or she fears firing at any moment. They are less likely to rock the boat on class sizes, curriculum standards, and funding problems if they know that complaints might mean losing their livelihood. So be it.

The second requirement would be to link Governor pay to performance. Teacher “accountability,” of course, means linking pay to student performance on standardized tests. Likewise, Governor pay should be linked to economic performance.

If Maine’s economy shrinks, so does the Governor’s pay. You may ask, what if the Governor is caught up in a national or global economic slowdown and Maine’s economy shrinks despite his best efforts? No matter. Teacher merit pay doesn’t, and can’t, take into account whether a particular class has more or fewer students from homes that encourage learning, ate a healthy breakfast, or otherwise have their grades affected by any of the nearly infinite variables outside the teacher’s control. Therefore, reducing the Governor’s pay based on “results” rather than his actual effort is surely fair.

Third, no more budget increases. Teachers aren’t getting budget increases to buy supplies and books. Class sizes are increasing with workforce cuts. Likewise, our Governor shouldn’t be allowed to increase the budget several hundreds of millions of dollars over the last budget, as Governor LePage has requested, just to try and keep voters happy. I know this makes things really tough, but no tougher than the situation for a teacher trying to raise her student’s grades and therefore keep her “merit” pay during a time of serious budget cuts. I don’t want to hear any whining about this one. Fair is fair.

Lastly, the Governor must of course take the pay and pension cuts being required of teachers. Currently a Governor must work all of one day to qualify for $26,000 in annual pension benefits for life. This must be raised to be comparable to teachers who work twenty-five years for the same benefit. And the Governor should contribute the extra 2% towards this pension. If this takes a Constitutional amendment, well, maybe the Governor should ask for one.

I think with all these changes we would see a remarkable improvement in the performance of our Governor. It just makes sense.

Which of our results-oriented Republican representatives will introduce this bill?