Panel backs targeted wage increase
BOISE – Legislative budget writers Friday approved $5 million to be used in fiscal year 2007 for targeted pay raises for state workers in jobs where turnover is high or whose wages dramatically trail their private-sector peers.
The measure also requires state agency directors to use any salary savings they may generate within their departments to compensate employees for performance – before using that money to address other operational budget priorities.
That provision reflects concern among some lawmakers that Idaho officials were taking money that could have been directed toward boosting salaries and shifting it to other things.
Members of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee said the new money will go primarily to social workers and nurses in the Department of Health and Welfare, as well as to engineers and prison guards.
“We purposely kept the focus narrow, so the money we did distribute had an immediate impact,” said Sen. Dean Cameron, R-Rupert. “There are many state agencies that probably would have hoped to be on the list. But the broader and more inclusive we made the list, the less impact it would have.”
The money, which still needs House and Senate approval, comes in addition to a 3 percent wage increase for about 19,000 state employees that kicked in Feb. 1 and will continue when the next fiscal year starts July 1. Total cost of the package is about $24 million, with a sixth of that coming from federal sources.
In addition to the targeted wage increase, all state workers will get a one-month “holiday” from paying their health insurance premiums in 2007.
The Division of Human Resources blames a 16.5 percent wage gap between Idaho’s public employees and those at similar, private-sector jobs for causing employees to flee the state.
More than half the money appropriated Friday, or about $2.57 million, will go to address wage discrepancies among Department of Correction employees, said Tom Beauclair, that agency’s director. Annual turnover among prison guards is about 30 percent, with the average wage about $12.66 an hour in Idaho, compared with more than $18 in Washington and more than $19 in Oregon, Beauclair has said.
“It’ll be primarily focused on correctional officers,” Beauclair said of his share.
The budget-writing panel passed the $5 million hike after defeating, 16-3, a Democrat-backed plan to add another 2 percent increase to state worker salaries. Sen. Elliot Werk, D-Boise, a proponent, criticized the package that eventually won for not going far enough.
For instance, state Human Resources Director Ann Heilman had requested a 5.7 percent increase.
“We need to gain ground,” Werk said. “We can’t continue in the holding pattern. The ($5 million) motion does that. It just holds ground.”
Still, the majority feared there wasn’t sufficient money in the state general fund to cover such an increase, which would have been ongoing. Rep. Maxine Bell, R-Jerome, said she was optimistic the requirement to use salary savings to boost employee pay could accomplish some of the same things Democrats were aiming at by appropriating more money.
“This will make this package much more palatable to employees,” Bell said.