Study to ask if SC state workers are underpaid

Annie Drakeford worked as a full-time S.C. state employee for 37 years before retiring from the Department of Disabilities and Special Needs in March.

As the agency downsized through the years, the 64-year-old Drakeford said she assumed more and more duties with no additional pay.

“Personally, I do not feel like I was compensated at all,” said Drakeford.

S.C. lawmakers have heard that message. Fewer and fewer underpaid state workers are doing more and more, lawmakers were told in the session that ended June 4.

In response, lawmakers decided to study the pay and benefits of state workers. To get a picture of how the pay of state workers compares to others, state Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg, sponsored a budget amendment that directs the Department of Administration to spend up to $300,000 to study employee compensation.

Employee pay is one of several issues being studied this summer that some lawmakers hope to address when they return to Columbia in January. Other issues being studied include:

▪  The state’s building needs, including higher education and technical college facilities, to determine whether to issue bonds to pay for those projects. A $500 million House borrowing proposal for state buildings was killed this year after pressure from Republican Gov. Nikki Haley. A scaled-back $237 million Senate borrowing proposal – mostly for higher education and state armories – also did not pass but could be revived next session.

▪  Ways to address the S.C. Supreme Court's 2014 ruling in the Abbeville school equity lawsuit. A House panel finished hearing public comments earlier this year and plans to meet this summer to develop policy recommendations. The panel hopes to report its ideas to the General Assembly in January. A similar Senate panel also plans to meet this summer and fall.

The employee pay study will examine state employee benefits and include a comparison of how much state employees are paid compared to private sector and local government workers.

Armed with that information, lawmakers should put money in the budget to raise the salaries of state workers, particularly those at the bottom of the pay scale, Cobb-Hunter said.

Bills get higher, income doesn’t

It has been almost two decades since the state’s pay system was overhauled.

“Since then, there have been changes in classifications, as needed, to address agencies’ needs,” said Brian Gaines, spokesman for the state Department of Administration. Most recently, the state made changes to address its needs concerning information security and privacy, he said.

Lawmakers decide each year whether to give pay raises to state employes.

During the past 10 years, including the aftermath of the Great Recession, there were four years when state employees did not receive a pay raise.

“Your bills got higher, but your income didn’t increase at all,” said Drakeford, the retired state worker.

This year, lawmakers OK’d a one-time $800 bonus for employees who make less than $100,000. The $23.5 million price tag for that bonus will be paid for from a $415 million state surplus.

Legislators need to do more to address the pay of state workers, said Carlton Washington, executive director for the S.C. State Employees Association.

Now, lawmakers fund other state needs first and consider whether to use any money left for pay raises.

When lawmakers tell state workers that if they have money leftover, they will address salaries “that sends a very negative message to employees,” Washington said.

During the Great Recession, the state tried to take care of its workers by helping to pay the increased cost of their health care benefits if there was not enough money to give a raise, said House Ways and Means Committee chairman Brian White, R-Anderson.

White said legislators always have taken care of state employees. But other priorities – including education and roads – require state money as well. “You’ve just got to have some balance with the other core functions of government.”

While legislators did not pass an across-the-board raise for state workers this year, White noted that some state workers did get raises. For example, some Social Services employees received a pay hike.

But Cobb-Hunter says it is unfair to give one group of state workers a raise and not another. “We need to stop pitting one group of state employees against another group by being selective in who gets a raise.”

‘A lot more with a lot less’

The Department of Administration expects to begin the process for hiring a vendor to do the pay study around the beginning of August, Gaines said.

The findings of that study and a plan for enacting its recommendations must be submitted by Jan. 4 to a legislative committee that also includes two members appointed by the governor and one appointed by the State Employees Association.

State agencies see a revolving door of employees because of poor pay, says the Employee Association’s Washington. “They end up going to local government, which pays more, or they go to the private sector, which really pays more.”

In addition, the number of workers on the state’s payroll has shrunk dramatically over the last 10 years.

The state had 32,442 state-paid workers last fiscal year, excluding positions paid for with federal or other money, down from 40,464 state-paid employees in the 2004-2005 fiscal year.

“Employees are doing a lot more with a lot less,” Washington said.

‘Doesn’t help ... pay their bills’

In addition to addressing pay, Senate President Pro Tempore Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence, wants the state’s health insurance plan, retirement package and other benefits studied as well.

“I’ve always supported state employees,” Leatherman said, adding he wants the other benefits included for a fair assessment of employee’s compensation.

Leatherman said that when he hears from state employees about whether lawmakers should increase their pay or pick up the higher cost of their health care premiums, they ask the state to cover the insurance increases, which is what lawmakers did this year.

Covering the increased health care costs certainly helps state employees, Cobb-Hunter said. “But that still doesn’t help state employees pay their other bills.”

Cobb-Hunter said she is most concerned about state employees who make less than $75,000 a year.

“The message we keep sending state employees is that, ‘You are not important enough for us to pay you,’” she said.