HARRISBURG — Gov.-elect Tom Corbett said Tuesday that he would forgo a portion of the new salary he will receive in his new job, while state Auditor General Jack Wagner called for a moratorium on automatic annual pay raises for state officials.

Corbett and Wagner spoke hours before a 1.7 percent cost-of-living increase goes into effect Wednesday for state legislators. More than 1,000 top executive-branch officials and judges will get their increases on Jan. 1.

Corbett, a Republican, said he intends to donate to charity a $2,974 cost-of-living increase in the governor’s salary.

“I think it’s very difficult to be expecting COLAs at this period of time,” Corbett told reporters, acknowledging that he will receive a salary increase — worth nearly 10 times as much as the cost-of-living increase — when his promotion from state attorney general to governor becomes official on Jan. 18.

The governor’s salary set by state law will be $177,888 in 2011. The attorney general’s salary is scheduled to increase from the current $145,529 to $148,003.

Treasury Department data shows about 130 lawmakers returned $190,000 over the past two years, while eight judges returned $52,600.

Regardless of what the recipients do with the increase, it is subject to income taxes and counts toward their pensions.

Some legislators say they will continue to give the money to charity or back to the treasury.

Corbett said the issue of automatic cost-of-living increases should be scrutinized, although he stopped short of advocating a repeal of the 1995 law that guarantees them for certain state employees.

“I certainly want to have discussions with the Legislature about the issue of COLAs,” he said.

The raises, authorized by a 1995 law, are based on changes in the U.S. Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index for the mid-Atlantic states for the year ending in each October.

However, Wagner, a Democrat, applied pressure on the issue Tuesday, saying that eliminating the cost-of-living increases would save the state $3 million at difficult economic time.