Premier Scott Moe continuing $3K legislative secretary top-ups for 13 MLAs

The Saskatchewan Party under Premier Scott Moe is continuing the practice of giving $3,000 bonuses, which the government calls "additional allowances," to 12 legislative secretaries as well as a bonus of more than $14,000 to the legislative secretary to the premier.

The additional allowances are not set by the premier or the government but by theBoardofInternalEconomy, an all-party committee of the Legislative Assembly.

Last week, Premier Moe appointed 13 MLAs as legislative secretaries. MLA Nadine Wilson, as legislative secretary to the premier, will earn the maximum eligible for the position at $14,311, which is on top of the regular MLA salary of $96,183.

Legislative secretaries are tasked with doing special work for and answering to provincial ministers. For example, Terry Denis, Legislative Secretary to the Minister of Education will answer to Minister Gord Wyant.

Previous Premier Brad Wall's practice, up until the summer of 2016, was to not pay legislative secretaries extra money to do the work. He sparked controversy with the NDP when he restored partial payments of $3,000after his government'sbelt-tightening provincial budget was introduced in 2017.

In the summer of 2017, Freedom of Information requests by the NDP for any records of work done by legislative secretaries yielded no documents. The government's response was that not all legislative secretaries produce reports.

In response to a query from CBC, a government spokesman noted that the previous NDP government had given its secretaries $12,000, or the maximum at the time.

Saskatchewan's new legislative secretaries

• Nadine Wilson, Legislative Secretary to the Premier
• Everett Hindley, Legislative Secretary to the Minister of Trade and Export Development
• David Buckingham, Legislative Secretary to the Minister of Immigration
• Doug Steele, Legislative Secretary to the Minister of Energy and Resources
• Larry Doke, Legislative Secretary to the Minister of Government Relations
• Hugh Nerlien, Legislative Secretary to the Minister Responsible for SaskTel
• Terry Denis, Legislative Secretary to the Minister of Education
• Herb Cox, Legislative Secretary to the Minister of Corrections and Policing
• Greg Lawrence, Legislative Secretary to the Minister of Social Services
• Lori Carr, Legislative Secretary to the Minister of Finance
• Fred Bradshaw, Legislative Secretary to the Minister of Environment
• Eric Olauson, Legislative Secretary to the Minister of Parks, Culture and Sport
• Steven Bonk, Legislative Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture