Officials have approved only 12 raises since policy reversal in March

Charleston Daily Mail (WV) - Friday, June 17, 2011

Author: Ry RIVARD DAILY MAIL CAPITOL REPORTER

State officials have approved just 12 pay raises since acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin's administration said in late March it would be easier for agencies to give discretionary raises.

The Tomblin policy applies to about 22,000 executive branch employees and lifted a six-year freeze.

As soon as former Gov. Joe Manchin left for the U.S. Senate in mid-November, cabinet secretaries asked Tomblin to end the Manchin-era freeze, which had frustrated employees and their bosses alike.

But so far, agency directors haven't taken great advantage of the leeway. They've asked to give raises to just 38 employees, according to data from the Division of Personnel.

The personnel division rejected one request, is considering 25 others and sent 12 to the Governor's Office for its approval.

The Governor's Office has approved the dozen requests it received. But so far, no employees have actually seen the raises on their paychecks. There's one more piece of paperwork agencies need to fill out.

The governor's personnel consultant, Joe Smith, said there were fewer initial raise requests than he expected. He expected about 2,600 workers to ask for and receive raises between March 2011 and March 2012.

"I thought that there would possibly be as much as 10 percent of the labor force that might be in that particular situation," Smith said.

By Smith's estimation, more than 200 employees a month would get raises At the current rate, only about 200 employees a year will get raises - or less than 1 percent of the workforce.

Unlike Smith, the Governor's Office didn't have any particular number in mind, a spokeswoman said.

"We didn't really have any expectations on the number of salary adjustments that would be made, other than to make sure that we monitored the issue to make sure that our employees were following fiscally responsible management practices," said Tomblin spokeswoman Kimberly Osborne.

Tomblin Chief of Staff Rob Alsop announced the new pay plan to agencies in a March 29 memo.

It makes state employees eligible for raises of up to 10 percent if they are threatening to leave their state job or join the private sector, if they work in border counties, if they are assigned special projects, or if they make significantly less money than other employees with similar duties and qualifications.

It's not clear how many people might qualify for such raises.

The state has not kept track of people who are paid dramatically less than others with their same job, for instance. But a survey Smith did in 2005 found about 4,000 state employees were near the bottom of their salary ranges even though they had been with the state for 10 years or more.

The tempo of the pay raises has increased recently. On Tuesday, when the Daily Mail first received information about the number of raises, only two had been approved by the Governor's Office. By Thursday, the office had signed off on 10 more.

Gordon Simmons, a field organizer for the West Virginia Public Workers Union, UE Local 170, said the pay raise policy was "tokenism."

"For the vast majority of state workers, this will mean nothing; they will still be frozen," Simmons said.

Smith and Division of Personnel spokeswoman Diane Holley-Brown said there were several possible reasons for the delay.

Holley-Brown said several memos were sent after Alsop's to clarify the policy and set up an automated way for agencies to send in the requests.

"It took a little bit of time to get the processes in place to educate and inform the agencies how to request," she said.

Smith said it's also the time of the year that agencies are putting together budget projections for the fiscal year, which starts July 1. That's a labor-intensive process that could be taking up staff time, he said.

Budget-wise bosses may also be cautious about giving raises right now.

The state is getting ready to overhaul the complicated system it uses to set salaries - a shakeup that is almost certain to increase payroll costs. The Hay Group, a management consultant hired by the state, is looking to change the job descriptions and salary ranges for thousands of state workers.

Once that's completed, salary costs are expected to rise for two major reasons. First, officials have promised that nobody will take a pay cut as a result of the Hay Group findings. Second, some workers are expected to be doing more than they are getting paid for, meaning they will be in line to get raises.

Smith said he wasn't aware of any specific hesitation about giving raises, but he said agencies were going to be conservative with their budgets in anticipation of the Hay Group findings.

It took Tennessee four years to fully fund the recommendations of the Hay Group, Smith said.

"You have to prepared for what liabilities may be created as a result of the Hay Group study," Smith said. "And if history repeats itself, there's going to be cost associated with implementing it."

Still, union leader Simmons thinks the new Tomblin administration policy isn't going to help many workers.

"I think it serves a political purpose," Simmons said. "I think the original impulse is they were worried about a legal liability; they were worried that the blanket freeze under Puccio was probably not legally defensible."

Simmons was referring to Larry Puccio, chief of staff to then-Gov. Manchin, who had ordered the Manchin-era freeze in a 2005 memo. In the Manchin administration, agencies were allowed to give increases only for promotions, and 15 percent was the most that could be given.

A circuit court judge last year questioned whether the Puccio memo was legal. The Tomblin administration has denied legal questions about the Puccio memo had anything to do with its decision to lift the freeze.

Simmons also said one of the 12 raises that has been approved by the Governor's Office was the result of a grievance.

In that case, an employee of the Division of Rehabilitation Services in Fairmont complained to her supervisor that she wasn't paid as much as others doing her job. The supervisor agreed and granted the employee a 10 percent raise, pending final approval, according to a copy of the grievance.

Simmons' account could not be verified. The Division of Personnel would not provide the names of the employees who were set to get raises, citing a final set of paperwork that needs to be filled out before raises are official and considered public information.

Contact writer Ry Rivard at ry. rivard@dailymail.com or 304-348-1796.