Raises under scrutiny

Lawmakers questioned $72 million in pay raises that Louisiana government agencies are giving employees next year, saying Wednesday that too many workers were getting salary bumps without a comprehensive review of their performance.
The near-automatic pay raises seem out of line with private businesses, where many people are taking pay cuts just to keep their jobs during the recession, said Rep. M.J. “Mert” Smiley, R-Port Vincent.
Government agencies can give their workers a “merit pay” increase each year based on their annual evaluations. Under civil service rules, the salary boost can’t be less than 4 percent for “classified” state employees — nearly 63,000 workers who aren’t political appointees.
Across state government, the 4 percent raises are largely routine and viewed as a way to give employees a cost-of-living adjustment.
Members of the House Appropriations Committee, which is combing through Gov. Bobby Jindal’s budget proposal for next year, said the raises should be tied more to performance and allowed to vary in size based on evaluations.
Rep. John Schroder cited figures that show, on average, 96 percent of state government employees get the raises. He said he doesn’t believe that all those workers are performing at a level to deserve a “merit” increase.
“Nobody in this building can convince me that 96 percent of employees in state government don’t need some improvement,” said Schroder, R-Covington.
“You can’t tell me we don’t have some deadbeats on the payroll,” he said later.
Commissioner of Administration Angele Davis, the governor’s top budget adviser, said the system needs revision.
“I’m frustrated about it too, because an employee that ‘meets expectations’ in my opinion should not get the same raise as an employee that ‘exceeds expectations,'” she said.
Several agencies are skipping raises for their “unclassified” employees next year, but they have more latitude on making those decisions than for classified workers.
Lawmakers and the Jindal administration are negotiating with the Department of Civil Service about ways to revamp the civil service system. Among the changes sought is to give state agencies more flexibility in pay increases for their classified employees. The ideas would have to go before the seven-member Civil Service Commission for a final decision.