To search the updated database of state employees' salaries, click here.

OLYMPIA – The best-paying state jobs in Washington are still in academia, with the very best in athletics.

The annual listing of salaries for all state employees shows once again that the biggest paychecks in 2011 went to staff at either the University of Washington or Washington State University, with the top five going to coaches of the two schools’ football and basketball teams.

Husky football coach Steve Sarkisian tops the list of state employees with an annual salary topping $2.5 million. He also saw the biggest increase from 2010, with an increase of $546,000.

University officials are always quick to point out, however, that salaries for coaches and the other athletic departments’ staffs don’t come out of state tax dollars. They are covered by a combination of ticket sales and broadcast revenues.

UW basketball coach Lorenzo Romar is second, with a little more than $1.2 million. WSU basketball coach Ken Bone, former WSU football coach Paul Wulff and former UW assistant coach Nick Holt round out the top five before the first non-coach, WSU President Elson Floyd shows up on the list at $625,000.

The list represents all payments made to state employees. . .

To read the rest of this item, or to comment, click here

OLYMPIA – While a House committee considered plans Tuesday to cut wages for some of the state's lowest-paid private workers, a Senate committee tried to emphasize the state doesn’t pay the salaries of its highest-paid public workers.

The House Labor Committee considered five different changes to the state's minimum wage law, which rises with inflation because of a 1998 ballot initiative and is now among the highest in the nation.
It’s so high that it hurts employment, training opportunities and profits, business groups told the committee. Cut the minimum wage and those workers will have less to spend in the economy, opponents of the bills said.

The Senate Higher Education Committee, meanwhile, aired out a bill that would prohibit by statute something that currently doesn't happen anyway: using state tax money to pay the salaries of coaches and other intercollegiate sports expenses at Washington State University and University of Washington.

“Everywhere I go, people are saying ‘I can’t believe the highest paid people for the state of Washington are football coaches,’ ” said Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, D-Camano Island. They’re often skeptical when she tells them that’s not state money; her bill would give current practice of using outside revenue to pay for intercollegiate expenses “the force of law.”…

To read the rest of this item or to comment, click here to go inside the blog.