YMMV, but I feel that politicians are actually at their best in their ‘term-limited’ term, as they don’t have to care about re-election and therefore don’t have to worry about pandering to voters and can do things with a long run view in mind.
Why not peg it to a certain multiple of the minimum wage?
Sure, I’d go with 100,000 x minimum wage ETA: it would be interesting to set the multiple at 10% of the state population times the state minimum wage. That way the more complicated states would pay more and the higher cost of living States would also compensate higher.
The basic idea should be to make governor a job that people want to hold then the election could be a contest between the most capable people in the state.