Arizona Senate mileage reimbursements
Here's how much each senator received for driving to/from the Capitol.
The per diem issue at the Arizona Legislature will be ongoing likely for weeks as nothing continues to happen at the Capitol except House Democrats picking their new leadership team.
Lawmakers will continue to cash in on daily subsistence payments of $10 for those in Maricopa County or $119 for those in any other county.1
One area not talked much about lately is lawmakers also bill the state –– and thereby the taxpayers –– for their mileage driving to and from 1700 W Washington.
The going rate for legislators is the same as it is federally at $0.655 per mile and each legislator is reimbursed every two weeks. The latest data provided by the Arizona Senate goes through May 26 so the following numbers are not fully updated.
The two senators earning the most in reimbursements between the start of session and May 26 are Brian Fernandez, a Democrat from Yuma and Ken Bennett, a Republican from Prescott. Both of those make sense given how far each city is from the Capitol.
Fernandez is at $10,567 and Bennett is at $9,956. Combined with their $24,000 salaries and subsistence payments for that same time period given their non Maricopa County status, they have earned $65,269 and $64,658, respectively.2
Reminder that those numbers are only through May 26. Both senators have not opted out of per diem payments as of June 21 so would still be making their daily amount of $119.
Most people are likely looking at Senator Wendy Rogers’ numbers in the sheet above as well because of the likeliness she doesn’t actually live where she claims in Flagstaff. Rogers is clearly billing her mileage based on either her home in Tempe or Chandler.
Her Flagstaff address is roughly 140 miles from the Capitol so just one trip would be $91.7. Rogers through May 26 earned $2,012.03 in mileage reimbursements which would only come out to 22 trips. Lawmakers have been at the Capitol for roughly 75 days during this 165-day session so it’s unlikely Rogers would not get every cent she can from taxpayers.
Her Tempe address however is about 14 miles from the Capitol and her Chandler address is roughly 20 miles away. That would come out to $9.17 or $13.1 per trip depending on the location.
The math for the Chandler address would line up more closely with the reimbursements. It would take about 153 trips at $13.1 to get to $2,012.03. 153 trips could also be seen as about 77 round trip drives. These are just rough estimates.
Before the 120th Day of Session, these numbers are $35 and $238, respectively.
I calculated this using the mileage numbers, the legislative salary given to all 90 lawmakers as well as the $238 rate for the first 120 days of session and $119 for the 18 days following. May 26 was the 138th day of session.