When Gov. Mitch Daniels froze pay for state workers in December, legislative leaders said they’d voluntarily cut their own pay by 13 percent.

Most did not. Instead, rather than send their dollars back to the state’s troubled bottom line, they say they have given — or intend to give — the money to charities, churches or schools.

But however lawmakers might try to make good on the pledge, calling it a cut might be a stretch. After all, lawmaker salaries almost doubled this year, the result of a raise they granted themselves in 2007.

DATABASE:Search for state employees who have receive pay raises or bonuses this year.

Of the 12 legislative leaders, only four returned money to the state.

“I think charities can use the dollars pretty much in tough times like today and actually might spend it more wisely than we do,” said House Majority Floor Leader Russ Stilwell, D-Boonville.

Stillwell, for one, still has some giving to do. He said he donated $750 to the United Methodist Church he attends in his hometown; $250 to a Methodist youth home — with plans to donate another $1,000 there this week — and will also give $500 to the Warrick County Red Cross.

Daniels announced the pay freeze Dec. 11 to save about $40 million as part of an effort to fill a $763 million shortfall in state revenues.

With a state payroll of more than $1.3 billion, the money that lawmakers promised to give back, and which Daniels and other statewide elected officials decided to forgo, is a symbolic gesture, a drop in the state’s fiscal bucket.

Although statewide elected officials, such as the attorney general, told state Auditor Tim Berry they would simply decline the pay increases, lawmakers said their analysis showed that doing so raised federal tax issues because they would be required to pay the full tax on the amount they should have been paid rather than the amount they received.

The Senate bookkeeper offered alternatives: Send the state a check for $2,058.10 — which represents a 13 percent pay cut minus enough money to cover the tax liability that each still owes on the full salary — or donate an equivalent amount to charity, as previous governors have done when they declined a pay raise.

House Speaker B. Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, said that based on that history, he chose to send money to a South Bend food pantry.

Besides, he said, “I think that’s the best way to do it, because who knows where the money given back to the state is going to go. Is it going to go to the hungry? People who lost their jobs?”

But Mellissa Boggs, vice president of human resources for Indianapolis-based Quantum Human Resources and Human Capital Concepts, said such donations don’t equate to cutting their salaries as pledged.

“They’re not giving anything back to the organization they work for, in this case, state government,” Boggs said.

Karl Ahlrichs, a partner with ExactHire, an Indianapolis human resources firm, agreed.

“I certainly applaud them setting the example, especially in tight economic times,” Ahrlichs said.

But, he noted, they can now deduct the contribution from their federal taxes — a benefit noted in bold type in a letter sent to senators about their options.

State employees who saw their pay frozen, he added, might resent it.

“(If) I see someone further up the food chain directing money to someone else, even if it is a noble cause, it’s a very personal thing,” Ahrlichs said. “The state employees, they’ll see that amount of money, whatever it is, and think to themselves that money (could have) been applied to my department.”

Branda Lewis, a Department of Natural Resources employee, didn’t mind that legislators donated to charity. But the loss of a pay raise, when state law gave legislators one this year, stung.

“I believe everyone should have gotten a raise if the legislators got a raise,” she said.

Senate President Pro Tempore David Long, R-Fort Wayne, and House Minority Leader Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis — along with Sen. Connie Lawson, R-Danville, and Rep. Kathy Kreag Richardson, R-Noblesville — were the only legislative leaders to choose the state as their charity case.

Long and Bosma said they decided to follow Daniels’ lead in making what was a small, symbolic gesture to help the state’s bottom line.

“For me, it was a chance to give back to the state,” Long said.

At least six legislators who are not among the 12 leadership positions decided to do so as well, including Sen. Luke Kenley, the Noblesville Republican who, as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has a lead role in crafting the next state budget.

“(Because) I was doing the budget, and I might be asking people to take less money, including schools, . . . I just better do it myself as a show of good faith,” Kenley said.

One lawmaker, Rep. Tim Brown, R-Crawfordsville, went even further, giving up or contributing $11,000 of his pay — the equivalent of the pay raise all lawmakers received this year.

Lawmakers’ base pay jumped this year from $11,600 to $22,616. With the state facing tough times, Brown decided to send the state a check for $4,000 and gave $1,000 to each to the seven school districts in his area.

“It’s a decision that’s right for this year,” Brown said.