It’s become something of a biennial tradition: The review of how much Maine’s top administrators are paid, accompanied by comparison to pay rates elsewhere and the requisite question: Does Maine pay its public officials too much?

This time around, the focus in recent news reports is on top legislative staff, many of whom are set in the coming year to earn more than the governor and his commissioners in the coming year. The secretary of the Senate, state law librarian, director of the office of policy and legal analysis, revisor of statutes and executive director of the Legislative Council would make more than $92,000 in 2001 — about $1,000 less than trial judges. That compares with Vermont, which pays $75,000 annually to its highest-paid legislative employee, and New Hampshire, which pays its highest-compensated legislative employee approximately $84,000 annually.

Criticism has focused on how most of Maine’s top legislative staff supervise fewer than 50 employees, while a commissioner such as Kevin Concannon of Human Services supervises some 2,400 people yet earns substantially less. It also focuses on how, by Maine standards, $92,000 is a huge pile of money.

But even in public service, a fundamental truth of capitalism holds: Employees will only stay if you give them good reasons to stay.

Certainly, serving the public has its own rewards. But in all the offices noted above, there is another unifying factor: The jobs are difficult and require intelligent, hard-working and skilled employees. Being able to manage thousands of bills, make sense of the state’s myriad of laws, understand arcane rules of procedure and extract sensible results from political desires are skills one does not find from the typical job applicant. In fact, people with those kinds of skills don’t have to work for $92,000. They could simply join a big law firm and do markedly better than that, even in Maine.

Given that term limits are sapping the Legislature’s institutional memory, Maine has to provide incentives for top staff to stay for extended periods – to become the people who remember when a piece of political ground was previously trod, to assist in ensuring the laws and rules of the state are followed, and to help matriculate new legislators into effective leaders.

One argument worth having on the salaries is over how much higher they are than the average wage in Maine. Given this state’s unfortunate ranking of 38th in the nation for income, it is possible to conclude that the disparity between the state employees and the average exists not because the employees make too much but because too many people are being paid too little for their efforts.

Nevertheless, while $92,000 is not a small sum, it’s not patently unfair, either, given what is asked of legislative staff leaders — especially when the Legislature is in session.