MADISON - With the state facing a $5.4 billion budget shortfall, state legislators say they have no control over the $2,500 pay raises they're scheduled to receive next year.

Lawmakers' annual salaries will rise $2,530, or 5.3 percent, to $49,943, according to the state Department of Administration.

The raises were approved when the Legislature's Joint Committee on Employment Relations voted to accept the salaries recommended by the Office of State Employment Relations.

Lawmakers can't write a law next year undoing the raises because the state Constitution bars changing the pay of elected officials during their terms, said Carrie Lynch, a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker, D-Weston.

Critics acknowledge the $334,000 wouldn't do much to address the budget shortfall, but they say the raises send the wrong message when so many others are having trouble making ends meet.

"It's much more symbolic right now for them to give themselves a 5.3 percent pay raise at a time when people are struggling to keep their jobs or are getting laid off all over Wisconsin," said Jay Heck, director of Common Cause in Wisconsin.

He also criticized the fact that raises are approved only by the eight members of the Joint Committee on Employment Relations, and not by every lawmaker who benefits.

"If you want a pay raise you should have the guts to vote for one," Heck said.

Decker and incoming Assembly Speaker Mike Sheridan, D-Janesville each issued statements Tuesday outlining the cost-cutting measures their chambers have taken. The measures included cutting administrative costs and freezing lawmakers' per diem allowances for daily expenses at the 2001 rate of $88 a day.

They also said pay increases for lawmakers have been "well below" inflation over the last decade.

In theory, lawmakers could convene next week to overturn the raises before the pay hikes become official in January. But that would be impractical, Lynch said, since the Assembly is still under control of the Republicans.

Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch, R-West Salem, could not be reached for comment when the Wisconsin State Journal tried to contact him.

Even if the raises take effect, lawmakers could give back the extra money. Spokeswomen for Decker and Sheridan said that's a decision each lawmaker would have to make individually.

Decker hasn't said whether he would refuse his raise, Lynch said. Rebekah Sweeney, Sheridan's spokeswoman, said she didn't know whether Sheridan would.

At least one lawmaker, incoming Assembly Minority Leader Jeff Fitzgerald, is weighing whether to accept his raise.

"We're still in the process of researching and seeing what the options are" for refusing it, said Jim Bender, a spokesman for the Republican from Horicon.

Information from: Wisconsin State Journal, http://www.madison.com/wsj