What if to get a raise you just had to do ... nothing?

Such is the design of how pay is set for the General Assembly’s 188 senators and delegates, where lawmaker raises are likely to take effect next year silently and without even a vote.

That’s because a commission reviews lawmakers’ pay every four years and makes a recommendation. If lawmakers do nothing, the salary recommendations automatically take effect. And that’s typically what happens — in this case, a 9% pay bump spread over four years.

The deadline to act is Monday’s midnight end of the 90-day legislative session. No lawmaker has signaled plans to introduce a resolution to reduce or nix the pay recommendations, and doing so at the end of the session would require leaps over several procedural hurdles.

So without taking any action, lawmakers would adopt the recommendations of the General Assembly Compensation Commission. The following pay increases would be phased in over four years, with 1.75% raises the next two years and 2.75% raises in 2029 and 2030.

• Delegates and senators: from $56,636 to $61,905
• House of Delegates speaker and Senate president: $73,562 to $80,406

Maryland lawmaker pay remains higher than the state’s median per capita income, which was just shy of $53,000 in 2024, according to the U.S. Census.

Lawmakers also pay into a pension plan, have access to health insurance and have expenses covered for meals, lodging and travel during their annual session in Annapolis.

Maryland’s delegates and senators are generally considered to be part-time lawmakers. But with long hours during a 90-day annual session, plus community work and additional meetings the rest of the year, the compensation commission argues that being a legislator is “akin to holding a full-time position.”

The intense 90-day session isn’t all the work that lawmakers do, said commission Chair David Nitkin, a former reporter who is now a communications consultant.

“The workload is way beyond that, both in the offseason and in committee meetings and in other work, constituent work and responsibilities in the community,” Nitkin said.

In setting the pay increases, Nitkin said the commission recognized the need to keep up with inflation while keeping the annual raises less than what unionized state employees are receiving, which is an average of 2% this year.

Nitkin said there’s an unsettled question of whether the General Assembly should be a part-time or full-time legislature, whether it should be a citizen legislature or a fully professional one. The commission’s report urges more study on the matter.

Full-time, professional legislatures in other states typically have higher salaries than Maryland. Nitkin said Maryland’s lawmaker pay is in the top-third of U.S. states.

The current roster of senators and delegates includes a mix of people who hold other jobs — which they might draw criticism for from voters who see potential conflicts of interest — and others who don’t have outside jobs because they’re retired or can afford not to work.

Some lawmakers have lamented that it’s difficult to obtain and keep jobs that allow them time off to serve in the legislature. There’s even a bill this year that would make it easier for delegates and senators to work for local and state government agencies.

Currently, lawmakers could work those types of jobs only if they held them before being elected. Once serving in the General Assembly, those jobs generally were not approved, on the grounds that they could represent a conflict of interest.

Sen. Ron Watson filed the bill to allow lawmakers to obtain government jobs if they’ve already served one term in the General Assembly. Watson’s effort was spurred after he was told by the Joint Committee on Legislative Ethics that he could not take a position with the Prince George’s County school system, which was first reported by Maryland Matters.

“Legislative compensation alone doesn’t support a family in today’s economy,” Watson, a Prince George’s Democrat, said during a hearing Tuesday.

Watson’s bill cleared the state Senate, but the House has not acted on Watson’s bill or a version from Del. Andrea Harrison, also a Prince George’s Democrat.

Lawmakers aren’t the only state officials in line for raises.

The salaries for governor and lieutenant governor are set to increase, again after lawmakers did not act to change recommendations from a salary commission. Over the next four years, the following raises will go into effect.

• Governor: from $195,000 to $210,000
• Lieutenant governor: from $175,000 to $185,000

A recommendation for judicial raises also goes into effect without action on yet another commission’s report, with the following raises over four years.

• District Court judges: $201,333 to $224,933
• Circuit Court judges: $214,433 to $238,033
• Appellate Court of Maryland judges: $223,633 to $247,233
• Supreme Court of Maryland justices: $236,433 to $260,033
• Chief judges on each court would make slightly more.

State lawmakers passed legislation to grant the following raises gradually over the next four years.

• Comptroller: $165,000 to $185,000
• Treasurer: $165,000 to $185,000
• Attorney general: $165,000 to $185,000
• Secretary of state: $120,000 to $128,000