AUGUSTA – Almost a year after their official appointments, the five members of the Maine Gambling Control Board are still waiting for state lawmakers to authorize the legislative per diem to which they are entitled.

The per diem is $55 a day, plus expenses such as meals and car mileage, members noted Thursday during a meeting in Augusta.

The board will have been in existence for a year in August. Before that, members put in several months of service as an advisory council. The pay issue is an apparent oversight on the part of state lawmakers, Assistant Attorney General Melissa O’Dea said.

“In all my years [as a state legislator and appointed official], I’ve never seen this happen,” board member Peter Danton of Saco said. “It just so happens that we can afford to sit on this board. I’d like to see ordinary citizens sitting on this board, too.”

The per diem originally was submitted as part of LD 90, a confidentiality bill pertaining to applicants for gambling and gambling-related licenses. The per diem provision, however, was deleted from the bill and submitted separately. It was tabled indefinitely by the Legislature’s Appropriation Committee, which wrapped up work on the state budget in late June, Executive Director Robert Welch said.

Welch said the compensation will be retroactive to last September, once it is granted.

Sen. Barry Hobbins, D-Saco, who attended the meeting, said he would help make sure the oversight is addressed, possibly during a special session that might be held this fall.

“I am, for one, really kind of embarrassed that this board or commission is treated like kind of a stepchild,” he said. “It’s no way to run a railroad and hopefully it will change.”

Danton agreed, adding, “This is a board that is going to contribute millions of dollars to the general fund. … How can you pass a bill creating a board and not fund it?”