State agencies next year will give many employees their first raises since the Great Recession, but the Senate wants to give the lieutenant governor’s office and the chamber’s budget office a little something extra.
The Senators approved a spending plan Thursday that could enable Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle’s staff and the Senate Budget Office staff to get bigger raises than most other state workers.
Some who voted for the budget said that wasn’t disclosed to the chamber before it voted on the spending plan.
“I have some concerns when so many state employees have suffered so long without pay raises and then we give them to people involved in the (budget) process,” said Senate Minority Leader Steve Henson, D-Tucker, who voted for the budget. “I didn’t know it was there.”
Under the budget the Senate passed, the chamber went along with Gov. Nathan Deal’s recommendation to give agencies a 1 percent hike in payroll — $24 million — to fund merit raises. Many state employees haven’t gotten raises since 2008 or 2009.
Georgia’s more than 100,000 public school teachers also have not received state-funded cost-of-living raises in years.
The House and Senate essentially decide their own budgets.
Based on 2013 payroll figures, the raise money approved by the Senate would be a 4.2 percent increase for the lieutenant governor’s office and 6.3 percent for the Senate Budget Office. Comparative payroll figures for 2014 were not available Thursday.
When asked about the raise money after the Senate vote, Cagle’s spokesman, Ben Fry, said, “The Senate believes it is important to retain and recruit top talent in critically important roles. These adjustments would allow us to do that.”
The total amount added for the raises for those offices is $63,000, an eyedrop in the ocean for a $20.8 billion budget. But some lawmakers say it sends a bad message when some teachers and employees may wind up without raises again next year.
House Appropriations Chairman Terry England, R-Auburn, declined to comment.
But Rep. Ben Harbin, R-Evans, the chamber’s former budget chairman, said, “I think it’s wrong. Teachers are struggling, we can’t retain corrections officers … they should be the first ones we take care of. We shouldn’t be handing out anything to anyone at the Capitol before we take care of them.”
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