Pay raise welcome relief to state workers

Sunday, April 18th 2004, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ Debbie Dorris has seen a lot in more than 20 years as an Oklahoma Department of Corrections employee, including many overworked, underpaid state prison workers.

Annual pay for a correctional officer starts at $20,664. Figures from the governor's office show that the DOC currently has a vacancy rate of 17 percent.

``It's just wearing people out,'' Dorris, now a warden's assistant at the Joseph Harp Correctional Center in Lexington, said of correctional officers' responsibilities. ``When you don't have staff to cover certain areas, that means people have to double up and do extra jobs.

``People start making mistakes when they're tired and overworked.''

Help is on the way for prison workers and virtually all state employees.

A two-phase pay increase signed into law last week by Gov. Brad Henry will give 35,000 state workers across-the-board raises totaling $2,100 next year.

The first will be a $1,400 raise on Jan. 1, followed by a $700 increase on July 1, 2005. The raises, which are spread over two fiscal years, will be the first salary increase for state employees in three years.

Getting the raise should lift the morale of state workers, but the boost in salary is even more special, Dorris said.

``The recognition is nice, but let's face it, we have kids to put through school and bills to pay,'' she said. ``Every little bit helps, because the cost of living keeps going up. Every year things cost more, but our salaries stay the same. So, we're tickled.''

Someone else who's tickled is Gary Jones, the director of the Oklahoma Public Employees Association, who has been lobbying the Legislature for years for a pay raise for state workers.

``When we did a 90-city tour of Oklahoma, I met with hundreds of state employees who said, 'I'm struggling, but I do this because I believe it's my calling,''' Jones said. ``For many, this is important relief. More importantly, it shows the Legislature and the governor appreciate and respect what they do.''

The average state worker in Oklahoma currently earns $29,969, which is 11.3 percent below the average salary for a comparable job in the private sector, according to figures from the Office of Personnel Management.

State finance officials estimate the pay raise will cost $23.6 million in the first year and about $71 million when fully implemented.

Although the $71 million price tag is almost identical to the projected revenue from a gaming bill passed earlier this year, officials said the anticipated gaming revenue will not be used to help pay for the raises.

``That's just coincidence,'' said House fiscal director Greg Sawyer.

State revenue collections that continue to exceed the projected estimates have resulted in an additional $273 million in growth revenue over last year, Sawyer said. That figure includes an estimated $31 million expected in new gaming revenue.

``I would say we had sufficient growth revenue to pay for the pay raises without the gaming money,'' he added.

House Republican leader Todd Hiett said he isn't sure exactly what money will be used to pay for the salary increases.

``The Republicans have had no input into a single dollar of expenditures in this year's budget,'' said Hiett, R-Kellyville. ``Not only have we had no input, we can't even get our questions answered as to where the revenue is coming from and how these items will be funded.''

Hiett said most of the members of his caucus supported pay raises, particularly for low-paid employees like prison guards and social workers. But Hiett said it was excessive to give across-the-board raises for all state employees.

``If the Republicans were drafting the legislation, we would have focused more on the lower-paid employees and certainly would not have extended pay raises to those in the $100,000-per-year range,'' he said.

Sawyer said the money for the pay raises was not included in this year's $5.3 billion general appropriations bill already signed into law.

He said the $23.6 million needed for the raises in fiscal year 2005 will be allocated to state agencies in a series of budget reconciliation bills later this session.