A state constitutional amendment to authorize reductions in the compensation of elected and appointed public officers and judges may be placed on the November ballot by the Legislature.

Budget cuts and public employee pay freezes or reductions at the state and local levels during this time of declining or stagnant revenues have caused some people to ask why our elected officials are immune.

The simple answer is that the state constitution prohibits decreasing the compensation of public officers after their election or during their terms in office.

If the question is whether public officers should be immune from pay cuts when budget shortfalls force freezes and cuts for others, then there may be no simple answer.

The constitution can be amended to attempt to answer the more complicated question about what should be the rule.

So far, three bills proposing amendments have been introduced that provide different answers to the more complicated question.

One would allow public officers’ compensation at the state and local level to be reduced whenever the “rainy day fund” at the state level can be used to make up for budget shortfalls.

Another would allow the compensation of officers who do not set the pay for the positions they hold to be reduced whenever the pay of employees within their jurisdiction is reduced.

The third would require reductions for all officers whenever the pay of any employee within the jurisdiction is cut, and would allow pay freezes whenever any employee’s pay is frozen.

Under the terms of the current constitution public officers are shielded from pay cuts during their terms in office, perhaps as a way to ensure that they can exercise their best judgment without worrying about someone punishing them by cutting their pay.

The three proposals now under consideration seem to take into account this idea of ensuring the independence of public officers and judges by linking the authority to cut their pay to something that has nothing to do with their own exercise of judgment.

Whether it is the occurrence of revenue conditions that authorize use of the state’s rainy day fund or local situations that force employee pay cuts or freezes, the thing that would trigger the ability to cut or freeze the pay of officers and judges has nothing to do with their individual performance of duty.

This sort of linkage is probably enough to guard against political “hardball” tactics intended to punish an officer or judge whose actions have disappointed those who could determine that person’s compensation.

So long as the same decrease in compensation must be applied to all officers and judges, not just to one or a few, then individuals would apparently be protected.

But one might wonder whether requiring pay cuts for all officers and judges when any employee’s pay is cut would make our officials more reluctant to cut anyone’s pay.

None of the proposals would authorize what had been intended by the Port Orchard city council when its members hoped to use a performance-based compensation model for the city’s mayor.

Having increased the mayor’s pay to see whether compensation based on a full-time position rather than part-time would turn out well, the council then learned it couldn’t reduce the incumbent’s pay no matter how it turned out.

If an amendment allows pay cuts even for those who fix the pay for their own positions, then the county commissioners would be able to do more than voluntarily pay more for medical insurance benefits to offset their previously adopted pay increases.

Under current law, the resignation of North Kitsap Commissioner Steve Bauer may allow the commissioners to rescind his previously adopted pay increase for 2012 before the election or appointment of a person to fill the position he now holds, but nothing can be done about the other commissioner’s raise in 2012.

It depends on the meaning of “during his term of office” in the constitution.

If “his term” ends with his resignation, the next person’s pay can be set before the next person is appointed or elected.

With an amendment to the constitution, even an incumbent who serves the full four-year term could be subject to a pay cut when budget conditions require it.

Bob Meadows is a Port Orchard resident.