The easiest part of the debate on a bill to raise the governor’s salary is to conclude both the current pay ($70,000) and the proposed level ($220,000) are wrong. The hard part is to find a fair number that represents the importance of the position, the idea of service over just making a buck and how the salary reflects the financial condition of the state.

Don’t expect Gov. John Baldacci to join in this debate. Though he would not be affected by the legislation – it does not apply to the governor now serving – for him to show the slightest interest in seeing the job pay better is a sure political loser. The best that can be hoped is that he will recognize Maine’s next governor should be paid fairly. LD 1908, to be heard Friday, would set the governor’s salary at 10 percent above the next-highest paid state employee, in this case UMaine Chancellor Joseph Westphal, who is paid $200,850.

Maine’s governor is currently at the bottom of the pay scale nationwide – next up is Arkansas, in 49th place at $77,000. But LD 1908, sponsored by Rep. Gary Moore, R-Standish, would result in a salary well above the highest, currently $179,000 in New York. The middle, which, broadly speaking, is where Maine should be aiming, is $110,000 to $130,000.

The current salary is inadequate because the governor’s job is crucial to the state, all-consuming for anyone taking it seriously and will become the purview of only the well-heeled if the salary remains as it becomes unaffordable to the typical person. This issue has come before legislators several times before in recent years but has not advanced very far.

Rep. Chris Barstow, D-Gorham, and chairman of the State and Local Government Committee, which will hear the bill, was quoted in a news story saying he opposed LD 1908 because lawmakers “went two years without raising state employee salaries.” Two years is serious, but the issue here is two decades. The last time the governor’s salary was increased was 1987.

Advocating for a salary increase for Maine’s governor is difficult because cheap shots about it are so abundant. That’s simply the way it goes, and lawmakers, who have a duty to protect the health of state government, should be more than able to explain why this state’s governor should not be by far the lowest paid chief executive in the country.

No one should get rich being a governor of any state, but they should not earn so little that the job is a financial punishment.