SC state employees get pay increase in House budget plan. Here’s how much
South Carolina’s state employees would get a 2% across the board raise under a House Ways and Means Committee budget proposal.
The proposal is part of that of a $15.4 billion spending plan approved Wednesday and on its way to the full House for consideration. That debate is scheduled to begin March 9.
Giving an across the board 2% raise will cost about $66.9 million more a year.
In recent years, lawmakers had given a lump sum raise to those on the lower end of the pay scale while those on the higher end received a percentage increased. The intent was to give those on the lower end a larger percentage pay increase.
“I have not given up on that idea as a better way to do state employee pay raises. But this year, with the new pay bands, there was some discussion about how to adjust the bands for everybody to stay in their band and make the raise work,” House Ways and Means Chairman Bruce Bannister said. “So today, the plan is (a) 2% pay raise. We may go back to the lump sum pay versus the percentage before the end of this (session).”
The Ways and Means Committee spending plan also includes spending an additional $33.9 million a year for those on the state health insurance to ensure that no one the health plan sees an increase in their premium for the 13th straight year. In recent years the amount the state has had to spend to make sure health insurance premiums did not increase had been much larger.
“Last year we were a victim of all the sort of the inflationary costs, and we addressed those last year, so we didn’t have that big an increase this year,” Bannister said. “That’s one of the reasons we were able to do 2%, is that those health insurance costs were so much lower than they were last year.”
