Pay Daze

teh
It’s stuff like this that makes me wonder why anyone in their right mind would want to work in State middle management (and many aren’t in their right mind, believe me, but that’s a post for another day).

State government employees who are not represented by a labor union will not receive pay raises in the new budget lawmakers approved this week.

The spending plan for the fiscal year starting July 1 does not include additional money for the so-called "merit compensation," or management-level employees, said Lena Parsons, a spokeswoman for the Governor's Office of Management and Budget.

"It's a real shame," said Sen. Larry Bomke, R-Springfield, who believes the employees deserve larger paychecks.

"They are hard-working people," he added. "They're working just as hard as everyone else, actually harder" because of downsizing in state government.

In some cases, merit-comp employees are being paid less than the people they supervise because the lower-level workers are union-represented, Bomke said. The union workers have been getting regular pay increases.

That part about supervisors making less than those they supervise is true, by the way. In my days working for state government, I once had a supervisor who had been promoted to management early in his state career and had not achieved anything close to the top union pay level. He then got only small annual pay increases if he got anything at all. Soon he was making less than ANYONE he was supervising. So he was doing crappy, thankless management work and getting paid less for it than if he had stayed in his old position. None for me, thanks.