A $3600 salary increase is a down payment to restoring state employee pay to its 1987 purchasing power
While the State of Texas faces severe budget problems, state employees and retirees have been facing severe problems for decades as the cost of living has increased faster than pay almost every year. It would take a pay increase of about $8,700 to bring the buying power of the median state employee salary back to the level of 1987. This is just the amount to offset the increased cost of living not covered by pay increases we have received. Despite the recession, the cost of living continues to increase. Most state employees did not receive any pay raise from 2009 to 2012. University employees have not had a statewide pay raise since 2002. Every year we go without a pay raise is a year we really see a pay cut.
This fair raise will restore our standard of living and help reduce employee turnover
In some agencies, turnover of key front-line staff ranges from 20% to over 80% per year. Turnover costs hundreds of millions of dollars in hiring and training, and it threatens the ability of state agencies and universities to fulfill their commitments to the people of Texas.
An across-the-board $3600 raise would help all state employees and assure that employees at the low end of the pay scale get a real raise that will make a difference in their lives.
Don’t leave out university workers – appropriate funds for a university employees’ pay raise! Repeal provisions that would eliminate across the board pay raises!
University employees have been left out of recent statewide pay raises. While the university systems claim that university employees have received similar raises via merit raise and “pay for performance” schemes, the reality is that most university employees’ pay has been frozen or has increased only by tiny amounts since 2003. In 2005, the Legislature did not appropriate any funds for university pay increases. The university systems have tried in the past to get legislators to give them pay raise money in a lump sum so they could distribute it as they saw fit, but TSEU has defeated the attempts in the past. In 2003, the legislature passed SB 1652, which includes language that makes across-the-board pay raises almost impossible for university employees.
NEEDS TO BE REPEALED:
SB 1652 (78th Texas Legislature,2003) SECTION 2.07. Amends Subchapter A, Chapter 51,Education Code, by adding Section 51.0065, as follows:Sec. 51.0065. APPLICABILITY OF ACROSS-THE-BOARD SALARY INCREASE. Entitles an institution of higher education that has adopted a pay-for-performance program that is in effect when an across-the-board salary increase for state employees made by an appropriation act of the legislature takes effect to receive any appropriation made for purposes of the across-the-board salary increase, and authorizes the use of the amount appropriated for an across-the-board salary increase or for increases in compensation under the institution’s pay-for-performance program.
