Pay increase for state workers next year

CARSON CITY -- 15,000 state workers will get a 2 percent pay raise, but it won't be until next year.

And a handful of top executives will be getting double-digit hikes starting in July.

Gov. Kenny Guinn and Senate and Assembly leaders announced Sunday an extra $8.6 million has been found in the budget to allow the pay raise starting in July 2000 for both classified and unclassified employees.

In Guinn's budget presented in January, there was no money for pay raises. Since then, estimates of tax revenue in the next two years have been raised. There's still not enough money for school teachers or university professors.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, said school teachers can bargain collectively with their school boards for a pay raise and university instructors are eligible for a 2 1/2 percent merit pay raise.

Raggio said, "We didn't want the classified employees left behind."

Assembly Speaker Joe Dini, D-Yerington, said it was too bad the Legislature did not have enough money for pay raises both years.

Bob Gagnier, executive director of the State of Nevada Employees Association, said he appreciated the 2 percent raise. But he said he would have rather seen the money diverted into creating another pay step for government workers.

About 44 percent of the state workers are topped out. And adding a pay step would have meant a 5 percent raise for them. The raise given by Guinn and the lawmakers goes to everybody for 2 percent.

Meanwhile a small number of unclassified workers will be getting pay boosts July 1 in addition to the 2 per cent next year.

Raggio said these raises in SB554 are to correct inequities. Less than 30 of the nearly 900 unclassified employees are going to receive this increase.

In some cases, the superior is earning less than his workers. Some positions may have been overlooked in pay raises two years ago. And there may be an inequity in pay between similar positions in state government.

For instance, Marc Ratner, executive director of the state Athletic Commission, will receive a raise of 16.4 percent to $70,833. Raggio said he was left out two years ago and his position in other states is paid considerably more. The commission oversees boxing in Nevada.

Pay raises of 8-9 percent are set for mechanical and computer experts in the state Gaming Control Board which has had difficulty recruiting for the jobs.

Carlos Concha, chief of the state Parole and Probation Division will receive 11.2 percent to $80,904, an adjustment being made to ensure he makes more than some of his employees.

Ray Alcorn, the newly-appointed state veterans affairs commission, is in line, for a 10 percent raise to $51,552, recognizing his increased responsibility to run Nevada's first veterans home being built in Boulder City.

There are five percent increases for Karen Kavanau, court administrator for the Nevada Supreme Court; Patricia Manning-Jarman, commissioner of consumer affairs; Frank Siracuse, chief of emergency management for the state; Dick Clark, executive director for newly independent Peace Officers Standards and Training and Bob Anselmo, administrator of the Clark County Taxicab Authority.

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