COLOMBIA – State House legislative aides are likely to see a pay rise this summer and the next, after votes aimed at aligning their salaries with those of people in similar jobs in South Carolina and neighboring states.
The beneficiary group is small – so small that the increases will not increase the existing $ 23 million budget from the Chamber.
But if it is time to increase the pay scale of 28 part-time workers who answer lawmakers’ phones, it is past time to show love to other state officials who continued to work during the pandemic, said Dep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter .
“I am happy for the advisors, but they are not my only priorities,” said the Orangeburg Democrat. “It does absolutely nothing for the thousands of state employees who are here working every day to keep the wheels of government on track.”
There is no widespread increase for state officials in the approximately $ 10 billion spending plan that the House is going to debate later this month.
But House Ways and Means President Murrell Smith said: stay tuned.
If state revenue estimates improve as expected, salary increases for state officials “will be a priority of mine” in a future 2021-22 budget review as the proposal progresses through the legislative process, said the Republican Sumter.
“They did a tremendous job helping us to overcome this pandemic, and we need to understand their sacrifice and recognize it through a salary increase or bonus,” he said, adding that he prefers to increase his salary.
The path to an increase is much shorter for advisors. A House panel voted unanimously on March 11 to pay them between $ 15 and $ 30 an hour, starting on July 1, and to raise their wages again in July 2022 to between $ 16 and $ 31 an hour. hour.
As soon as the entire committee approves the recommendations, they will go to the Mayor, Jay Lucas, for the final decision.
Currently, they earn $ 14 to $ 20 an hour, with some “at most” at the maximum hourly wage. All 28 would see a boost, said the president of operations at the house, Garry Smith, R-Simpsonville. He was not sure how much his annual wages would collectively increase.
But, hypothetically, if the advisers at the top of the current pay scale immediately rise to the top of the next pay scale and work the maximum allowable 930 hours per year – then the House avoids paying benefits – their salary would increase by $ 9,300, to $ 27,900 during the next fiscal year.
Since the advisors’ pay scale was last adjusted in 2017, inflation has increased by 4% in the Southeast and 8% across the country, Smith said. Compared to similar jobs in the Southeast, the state and Columbia only, “we are far behind”.
Cobb-Hunter certainly does not discuss this.
She has been making similar arguments for years, as the main advocate of the Legislature for state employees who earn less than $ 45,000 a year – which happens to be most of them. Although generally unsuccessful, it continues to struggle for a significant increase. This year, she wants no less than 4 percent.
“We need to stop making mistakes about paying civil servants and understand that we can’t go on saying, ‘Wait until next year,'” Cobb-Hunter said. “Every year there is a different excuse, but we always seem to find a way to increase the salaries of certain civil servants. And that has to stop.”
This year’s first draft budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 again offers selective increases.
The proposal put forward by House Ways and Means provides more than $ 16 million to increase police pay at six agencies, as part of a one-year effort to reduce staff turnover and vacancies, and $ 2 million for retaining officers. Motor Vehicle Department employees.
It also covers the annual increase in teachers promised in their contracts. Normally given, so-called gradual increases, which averaged 2%, were halted when the Legislature froze spending last year amid the pandemic. A separate account, spending up to $ 50 million to pay retroactively for the 2020-21 salary increase, is going to Governor Henry McMaster’s desk.
Representative Nathan Ballentine de Chapin is among Republicans who argue that it is time to pay more to employees at all state agencies.
“They deserve it,” he said. “They work hard and need it. I know all the excuses. They are due.
“I fully believe that the men and women who work for the state, especially in these times, but at all times, deserve to be compensated.”
follow Seanna Adcox on Twitter at @seannaadcox_pc.