Texas Secretary of State and Alice native David Whitley pocketed a whopping 49 percent pay raise from the previous person at that post thanks to the work of his friend and political ally Gov. Greg Abbott.
The Austin American Statesman reports that in a Dec. 18 letter to the Legislative Budget Board, the governor’s chief of staff said that Abbott was using his authority to boost Whitley’s annual salary to $197,415.
Whitley’s new salary for the job represents a 48.52 percent raise of the $132,924 yearly salary paid to Rolando Pablos, who was secretary of state before Whitley.
The raise meant that Whitley took a pay cut from his $205,000 salary as the governor’s deputy chief of staff.
The Statesman indicates that Whitley and Abbott have had a long political relationship. Whitley began working for the governor in 2004 and spent almost four years as the then-attorney general’s travel aide, driving Abbott across Texas and helping him move from automobile to wheelchair.
It led to Abbott and his family to consider Whitely as almost part of their family, according to aDallas Morning News profile of Whitley.
