In declaring that there would be no money in his 2009-10 budget for pay raises for teachers and state employees, Gov. Joe Manchin failed to mention that (in addition to raises to members of his own executive staff), that about 3,800 state employees got raises totaling in excess of $5 million last week.
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CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- In declaring that there would be no money in his 2009-10 budget for pay raises for teachers and state employees, Gov. Joe Manchin failed to mention that (in addition to raises to members of his own executive staff), that about 3,800 state employees got raises totaling in excess of $5 million last week.
That's because, effective Feb. 1, the Division of Personnel upgraded its pay schedule for the first time in seven years, and everyone who fell below the newly raised minimum for their pay grades effectively got a raise with last week's paycheck.
For instance, for pay grade 2 (the lowest pay grade), the minimum salary went from $11,256 to $16,008, so anyone at that pay grade making less than $16,008 got bumped up to that amount.
And the bump in the minimum goes all the way up to the top of the scale, pay grade 26, which went from $57,444 to $62,100.
For about 2,750 salaried employees, that meant an overall increase of $5.6 million, or an average increase of $2,036.
An additional 1,050 Department of Transportation employees who are paid hourly wages got a similar bump in their minimums, although the dollar value of that increase was not available as of Friday.
Manchin spokesman Matt Turner said the governor regarded the change in pay grades as an administrative matter, and did not mention them in his State of the State address.
"Some of the pay grades were so outdated, they didn't make sense," Turner said. "They were almost below minimum wage."
However, the revisions have created some consternation among employees within agencies, since new hires at the minimum rate of their pay grades effectively got pay raises of 15 percent or more, bumping them close to long-term employees at the same pay grade, who received no increase under the adjustment.
As one Health and Human Resources employee wrote me, "The system rewards you when you move from job to job, instead of rewarding knowledge, skills, experience and tenure. Now the system will reward those who just started. ... Why was this implemented without communication with employees presently employed? If you increase the minimum starting wage 15 percent, then also increase the pay of working employees 15 percent."
nn
Speaking of personnel, employees in the Division of Highways are irked that two former legal division attorneys were recently rehired at higher salaries.
They are: Krista Duncan, girlfriend of DOH Human Resources director Jeff Black, who was rehired at a salary of $72,276, and Tim Wilcox, who was rehired at a salary of $69,000.
Also a new hire in the Finance and Administration section is Danny Scalise, brother-in-law of Administration Secretary Robert Ferguson, at a salary of $56,130.
Word is that Highways assigned Scalise a parking space out toward Laidley Field, so he went to Ferguson to get a space closer to the Capitol through the Department of Administration.
nn For more political news, click here
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- In declaring that there would be no money in his 2009-10 budget for pay raises for teachers and state employees, Gov. Joe Manchin failed to mention that (in addition to raises to members of his own executive staff), that about 3,800 state employees got raises totaling in excess of $5 million last week.
That's because, effective Feb. 1, the Division of Personnel upgraded its pay schedule for the first time in seven years, and everyone who fell below the newly raised minimum for their pay grades effectively got a raise with last week's paycheck.
For instance, for pay grade 2 (the lowest pay grade), the minimum salary went from $11,256 to $16,008, so anyone at that pay grade making less than $16,008 got bumped up to that amount.
And the bump in the minimum goes all the way up to the top of the scale, pay grade 26, which went from $57,444 to $62,100.
For about 2,750 salaried employees, that meant an overall increase of $5.6 million, or an average increase of $2,036.
An additional 1,050 Department of Transportation employees who are paid hourly wages got a similar bump in their minimums, although the dollar value of that increase was not available as of Friday.
Manchin spokesman Matt Turner said the governor regarded the change in pay grades as an administrative matter, and did not mention them in his State of the State address.
"Some of the pay grades were so outdated, they didn't make sense," Turner said. "They were almost below minimum wage."
However, the revisions have created some consternation among employees within agencies, since new hires at the minimum rate of their pay grades effectively got pay raises of 15 percent or more, bumping them close to long-term employees at the same pay grade, who received no increase under the adjustment.
As one Health and Human Resources employee wrote me, "The system rewards you when you move from job to job, instead of rewarding knowledge, skills, experience and tenure. Now the system will reward those who just started. ... Why was this implemented without communication with employees presently employed? If you increase the minimum starting wage 15 percent, then also increase the pay of working employees 15 percent."
nn
Speaking of personnel, employees in the Division of Highways are irked that two former legal division attorneys were recently rehired at higher salaries.
They are: Krista Duncan, girlfriend of DOH Human Resources director Jeff Black, who was rehired at a salary of $72,276, and Tim Wilcox, who was rehired at a salary of $69,000.
Also a new hire in the Finance and Administration section is Danny Scalise, brother-in-law of Administration Secretary Robert Ferguson, at a salary of $56,130.
Word is that Highways assigned Scalise a parking space out toward Laidley Field, so he went to Ferguson to get a space closer to the Capitol through the Department of Administration.
nn
One of the reasons the American Federation of Teachers-West Virginia has been gaining members over the larger and older West Virginia Education Association is that the AFT has had more astute leaders and lobbyists than the WVEA in recent years.
So it was surprising that the AFT made the colossal public relations blunder to have teachers rally outside of the House chambers Wednesday, chanting and yelling for pay raises this session.
That was an incredibly crass display, given that most West Virginia taxpayers are just hoping to hold onto their jobs this year - let alone get any pay raises.
(The teachers certainly didn't improve their standing among any of the legislators I talked to after the rally.)
If teachers don't like their pay here, maybe they should take their chances and move to a state like Virginia - where school systems are looking at the possibility of 10 percent reductions-in-force this year.
nn
Manchin usually isn't one to let anyone upstage him, but obviously needed a strong close to an otherwise lackluster State of the State address, which he achieved by introducing former West Virginia University star quarterback Pat White.
Manchin, I'm told, paid out of his own pocket to fly White in for the speech (on a commercial flight, not a state or private plane) from California, where White was working out in preparation for the NFL scouting combines this week in Indianapolis.
nn
Finally, while discussing the speech Thursday in the press room, MetroNews' Hoppy Kercheval asserted that he could boil Manchin's nearly 50-minute speech down to three sentences. That inspired me to write this haiku, which was first posted on the Gazette's new legislative "Squawk Box" blog:
State budget is broke
Sorry, no raises this year
Look, there's Pat White!
Reach Phil Kabler at ph...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1220.
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Also, does Puccio drive a Ford Focus , or is it a full sized SUV? Who pays for the fuel? Have Chiefs of Staff been assigned State vehicles in the past?
C'mon Phil, enough soft serve ice cream. Show us something.