No state employees' pay raise in new budget

Most Missouri state government employees got a pay raise on Jan. 1, but they won't be getting another in the new budget the Legislature sent Gov. Jay Nixon on Thursday.

"Well, they didn't get hurt in the fact that they didn't get anything cut to their benefits or their state pay," Sen. Mike Kehoe, R-Jefferson City, said after lawmakers passed the $26 billion budget plan. "The Senate tried to figure out a way to get a pay raise into the budget, but we were unable to accomplish that."

The lack of a pay raise was "incredibly disappointing," Rep. Jay Barnes, R-Jefferson City, said.

"We've had some - obviously modest, but steady - pay increases three years in a row now," he said. "So this is the first year in three years with no pay raise at all, and it's disappointing."

The budget includes $300,000 to pay for a total compensation study comparing Missouri state workers with their counterparts in other states and in the private sector.

"I think the compensation study is important, but the compensation study is not going to result in something" leading to great leaps in state employees' pay and benefits, Barnes said. "Look, we know the basic answer is that we are at the very bottom, or near the bottom of state employee pay.

"And every year we have where there is not a pay increase means that we fall further behind, rather than catching up and getting to a level that is consistent with our cost of living."

Kehoe also was pleased lawmakers again proposed paying for the study - an item Nixon vetoed last year.

"We would like to be able to go with a good business case to the rest of our colleagues from the rest of the state, and show them why our state employees need a better compensation package," Kehoe said. He noted lawmakers from other parts of the state - with fewer state employees as constituents - need more information to show the importance of state workers to the overall budget.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, said funding for state employees' pay is one victim of a budget that grows each year because of social program costs "eating up every bit of new revenue, plus additional revenue that we have to take from other places."

Schaefer added: "The thing that I think surprises people when they first go on the (Appropriations) committee and really dig into this budget is how tight everything is.

"With numbers that large, you think there's just big buckets of money sitting around for you to draw on - and it does not exist.

"Everything is allocated. It's like a "Jenga' game - every piece is related and, if you pull one out, something falls out somewhere else."

See also:

Missouri Legislature passes $26 billion spending plan

A look at Missouri's $26 billion budget passed by lawmakers