Merit-Based Pay Hikes Endorsed Two Committees Side With Governor, Favor $20 Million For State Employees’ Raises
Gov. Phil Batt’s proposal for merit-based pay increases for Idaho’s 16,000 state workers was endorsed overwhelmingly Tuesday by House and Senate Human Resources committees.
In what was the governor’s first major victory after a number of setbacks during the first nine days of the legislative session, his fellow Republicans on the two committees endorsed his plan to distribute more than $20 million to state employees based on evaluations by their supervisors.
Only the three Democrats on the two committees opposed the move as they underscored concerns that favoritism could deny worthy employees a fair increase when the new budget year begins in July.
“Hopefully, it will work,” said Jerry Rasavage of the Idaho Public Employees Association. “The worry again is who is going to benefit.”
The committees urged state managers to focus on bringing employees with satisfactory work records after at least five years on the job to the midpoint of their pay schedules - something analysts say will take $8 million to $9 million.
But Personnel Commission Director Richard Hutchison acknowledged that the plan “doesn’t mandate salary increases to anyone.”
Adoption of the governor’s distribution scheme marked a turnaround from late last week when many Republicans disagreed with disbursing the cash based solely on merit. Instead, there was support for a 2 percent across-the-board pay hike worth about $8.4 million, with the rest of the money being used to bring lower-paid workers up to the midpoint of their pay schedules and to provide merit increases.
But Senate Human Resources Committee Chairman Dean Cameron, R-Rupert, said that approach contradicted the Legislature’s 1994 commitment to a performance-based pay system, while a House-proposed option to give every worker an increase of at least $700 appeared illegal.
The commitment to a substantial increase in cash for state payrolls follows the Legislature’s decision last winter to deny state workers the modest 2 percent pay hike Batt had proposed.
Rasavage said the admonition for managers to bring workers up to midpoint of their pay schedules would benefit lower-paid state employees. But he also said that approach easily could distort the distribution of pay hikes so that one worker with a satisfactory rating might get a 6 percent raise to bring him up to the mid-point, while another satisfactory-rated employee at or above the midpoint might get an increase of only a percentage point or two.
But the critical component is the system used to evaluate employee performance. Rasavage and other state worker advocates contend all too many state managers are not adequately trained in evaluation procedures, making the system unfair.
“We have to make sure this evaluation system works and not this favoritism that has occurred year after year,” Rasavage said.
xxxx CHANGE OF HEART Last winter, state lawmakers decided to deny workers the 2 percent pay hike Gov. Phil Batt had proposed.