Lawmakers, this time in the Colorado state Senate, continue to struggle over the issue of “self-compensation” as it relates to per diem.

But it’s a discussion that will be put off for another day, based on action by the Senate on Thursday afternoon.

The issue is tied to House Bill 21-1003, which was the subject of a late evening debate in the House Wednesday night, and led to another round of discussion within the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee Thursday.

House Bill 1003 is on legislative proceedings during a declared disaster emergency. One of its primary purposes is to allow SMART Act hearings – that’s the meetings between state agencies and their oversight legislative committees – to take place while the General Assembly is in recess. Bill sponsor Senate Majority Leader Steve Fenberg, D-Boulder, said the plan is for those hearings to be concluded prior to the legislature’s return on Feb. 16.

The bill also authorizes lawmakers to participate remotely in those committee meetings, and that’s where the discussion on per diem, the compensation provided to lawmakers when the legislature is in session, came up.

Lawmakers who live more than 50 miles away from the Capitol, and who often incur housing expenses while they’re in session, are paid $219 per day; those who live less than 50 miles from Denver are paid $45 per day. During an interim period, that amount drops to $99 per day, designed primarily for those who work on interim committees or the Joint Budget Committee.

The bill allows per diem to be collected even for those lawmakers who are participating remotely, including from home. That raised objections from House Republicans Wednesday night, who claimed someone participating remotely from home isn’t incurring any expenses related to their legislative work.

Per diem isn’t paid automatically; lawmakers have to submit monthly reports to claim it.

Leading the objection on that section of HB 1003: Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling, who raised the same issue that House Republicans debated Wednesday night.

Fenberg responded that per diem is supposed to be for multiple reasons. “You could argue expenses are different” when someone is participating remotely versus being at the state Capitol, although he didn’t cite an example.

Sen. Dominick Moreno, D-Adams County, quipped that “because I have no life, I went home and watched the House debate on this” Wednesday night. Per diem has evolved beyond expenses, Moreno said.

“There’s no accounting attached to it,” he said, adding that travel, including mileage and meal reimbursements, are accounted for separately.

“I think it will be an important conversation for the legislature going forward, and broader than what this bill proposes to do,” Moreno added, and that drew agreement from Sonnenberg and Fenberg.

“This part of statute needs to be cleared up,” Fenberg said. “It gets politically dicey when you open the door to self-compensation.”

During the 73-day timeout in the 2020 session between March and May, at least 21 lawmakers took per diem on most, if not all, of the 73 days the legislature was not in session. All were lawmakers who live more than 50 miles from the state Capitol, and most would be responsible for paying for Denver residences, even when the legislature was not in session. According to a legal opinion from Legislative Legal Services, those 73 days are considered “in-session.”

RELATED: Bills freeze legislators’ pay in a year where per diem ran rampant

About three dozen lawmakers, all within the 50-mile radius of Denver, took only a few days or even no per diem in April and the same in May.

The six-member Joint Budget Committee was the only legislative body holding hearings during that time, primarily on finding the $3 billion in general funds to cut from the 2020-21 state budget.

The 73-day timeout could have added 40 additional days for per diem in 2020, but that was minimized because the legislature met 84 days out of the 120 days it’s allowed to meet under the state Constitution.

One of the bills enacted in the 2020 session was a temporary freeze on increasing per diem for non-metro lawmakers from $219 to $239 per day. That freeze was intended for the 2020-21 fiscal year, meaning that without legislative changes in 2021 that freeze will expire on June 30, 2021.

House Bill 21-1003 passed on a 3-2 party-line vote and was sent to Senate Appropriations, where it passed on a 6-1 vote. It now heads to the Senate floor for a second reading and a preliminary vote.

Once it reached the Senate floor for second reading, Fenberg had enough “heartburn” over the issue, and won approval for an amendment to strip out the language on per diem from the bill. 

The State Affairs Committee also sent two other bills straight to the Senate: HB 1001, on remote participation for party committee meetings, and HB 1004, on allows remote notarization of electronic wills. 

Those bills will be joined by HB 1002, a complicated tax measure tied to COVID-19 relief from the 2020 regular session, which passed Senate Finance on a 4-2 vote and Senate Appropriations on a 6-1 vote.