The raise, the first since 1995, boosts the salaries of House and Senate members from $69,647 to $81,050, an increase of $11,403, or 16 percent.

It makes Pennsylvania’s lawmakers the second-highest-paid in the country, behind only California’s.

The bill passed the House 119-79 and the Senate 27-23 without debate early this morning.

Of the 11 lawmakers who represent parts of Lancaster County, six voted in favor of the pay raise, four voted against it and one was on medical leave.

Some of the local lawmakers who voted for the increase say their new pay level will more accurately reflect their workloads.

“I work seven days a week to meet the obligations of my constituents and to meet my own performance expectations,” said state Rep. Roy Baldwin of Manheim Township, who voted in favor of the increase.

“Looking at this job compared to others in my career, I haven’t worked so many hours since I was working on my family’s potato farm sunrise to sunset,” said Baldwin, a Republican.

In addition to Baldwin, two other House members voted in favor of the pay raise. They are Reps. Tom Creighton, a Republican, and Democrat Mike Sturla.

“I think the pay level now is commensurate with the work level and experience required for the job,” said Sturla, from Lancaster City.

Creighton did not return telephone messages Wednesday or today.

Those who voted against the raise said it was a personal decision, and that they hold nothing against fellow lawmakers who voted in favor of it.

Rep. Scott Boyd of West Lampeter Township, who voted against the raise, said that “from a personal standpoint, I felt like it was the right thing for me.

“As I’ve said in the past, (his wife) Nancy and I, our family, we’re blessed.”

Also voting against the raise were Reps. Gibson C. Armstrong, Gordon Denlinger and David Hickernell.

Denlinger, a Republican from Narvon, said of his “no” vote: “It’s a personal decision. I still feel I’m relatively new in Harrisburg and think that it would be the desire of people in my district that I vote accordingly.”

Hickernell could not be reached for comment.

Republican Rep. Katie True of East Hempfield Township, who opposes pay increases, was on medical leave and was excused from voting.

She was recuperating from surgery that had been scheduled for after the budget was supposed to have been finalized, her husband said.

Each of the three state senators who represent districts in Lancaster County — Gibson E. Armstrong, David “Chip” Brightbill and Noah W. Wenger — voted in favor of the pay raise.

Under the state Constitution, the legislative raises cannot officially take effect until the next Legislature is seated in December 2006.

But the bill passed this morning includes language allowing the members to collect the raises immediately through “unvouchered expenses.”

Boyd, who voted against the bill, said he will not accept the unvouchered expenses. True has not accepted them in the past, either.

Denlinger is considering it.

The pay-raise proposal, hammered out in secret by legislative leaders, was approved by a House-Senate conference committee Wednesday night.

Floor votes were taken shortly after lawmakers approved a state budget early this morning.

Although lawmakers say their salaries have not increased substantially since 1995, they have received automatic pay hikes every year over the past decade.

The annual adjustments are tied to cost-of-living increases in the Philadelphia area, and have boosted lawmakers’ base pay by nearly $14,000, or 25 percent, since 1995.

Those adjustments, popularly known as COLAs, were approved along with the previous pay raise as a way to allow the Legislature to deal with issues of the day without facing controversial pay-raise votes every so many years.

But pay-raise supporters say those adjustments only kept salaries at the status quo, and that it was time for a significant raise.

“COLAs are designed to keep you even with the rate of inflation,” said Wenger, a Republican from Stevens who voted for the new raise.

“There really was no pay raise for the 10-year- period,” Wenger said.

“The time comes when you have younger members, newer members who have greater responsibilities ... that’s when the interest in readjustment for salary comes,” he said.

Wenger added that the raise will cost his 260,000 constituents about 9 cents a year: “It’s not something that’s significant as far as impacting on my constituents. I always look at that.”

Sens. Armstrong and Brightbill could not be reached for comment.

The new pay plan links the salaries of lawmakers, judges, and top executive-branch officials to comparable positions in the federal government. Lawmakers’ salaries will be half of a congressman’s $162,053 annual pay.

But political observers believe it will only be a matter of years before lawmakers will push for yet another formula that will boost their pay.

“Ten years from now there will be another effort,” said G. Terry Madonna, the director of Franklin & Marshall College’s Center for Politics and Public Affairs.

“We get new governors and new legislators — all with different perspectives on this.”

Pennsylvania lawmakers also receive fully-paid health insurance and a fully paid pension. Additionally, they get as much as $7,800 a year for vehicle expenses, and those who live more than 50 miles from the capital get $129 a day in expenses.

James H. Broussard, the chairman of Citizens Against Higher Taxes in Hershey, said that paying $60,000 to $80,000 for a full-time lawmaker is not unreasonable.

“If you’re saying we want full-time people to run the state, I can see the argument. You’ve got to pay the money to find quality people,” said Broussard.

The real question, according to Broussard, is whether or not Pennsylvania needs a full-time Legislature, one of only four in the nation.

“There are states bigger than us — Texas, for example — where they can seem to manage the state and maintain a citizen Legislature, and then you can pay people much less, which would gratify taxpayers, and let the lawmakers have another job,” he said.

“That gets the legislators back out in the community, doing what regular people do most of the year, essentially living under the laws they pass.”