Arkansas legislative committee approves state employee pay hike

(Getty Images)

A legislative panel advanced an amended bill Tuesday that would increase all state employees’ pay by up to 3% and create special compensation awards for those who complete special projects beyond the scope of their typical responsibilities.

The amended version of Senate Bill 77, which was presented to the Joint Budget Committee’s Personnel subcommittee, aims to address concerns raised by lawmakers like Rep. Dwight Tosh about ensuring that the special compensation is awarded fairly. 

The Jonesboro Republican has repeatedly said over the last week that he wants to prevent supervisors from picking “winners and losers” by only selecting employees they like for special projects and the corresponding additional compensation.

“All I want to make sure of on this bill is that every state employee … is treated fairly,” Tosh said. “I want to make sure that all of them are on a level playing field and that every one of them, when there’s an additional assignment, that they are given the same opportunity to be able to do that assignment and to qualify for this special compensation.”

The amended bill requires “objective, measurable standards for the selection of employees” eligible for the award as well as a description of how employees were selected for the temporary job responsibilities that prompted the extra compensation. 

The awards include a bonus of up to $5,000 or up to 40 hours of leave, and employees may only receive two special compensation awards per biennium. State agencies must find the funding within their own budget to support the awards and cannot access the Performance Fund.

State agencies that want to provide special compensation awards must prepare a written plan that will be reviewed by the Office of Personnel Management and must receive final approval from lawmakers. 

Once an agency’s plan is approved, any award the agency wishes to provide must be approved by OPM and reported to lawmakers each month.

Sen. Breanne Davis (Photo courtesy of the Arkansas Senate)

Bill sponsor Sen. Breanne Davis, R-Russellville, said the required legislative approval throughout the process will help ensure the program is being executed as intended. 

“We can approve or not approve, so I do think we’ve done our due diligence here to really address concerns and make this language airtight to ensure that there’s not favoritism … that all employees have a chance,” Davis said. 

In addition to the special compensation awards, SB77 creates a one-time market adjustment of up to 3% of all state employees’ base salaries. The legislation also compresses the pay scale for General Salary levels 1-5 so they all have an identical pay scale that ranges from $32,405 to $51,686.

The 3% market adjustment and pay scale compression will have an estimated cost of $19 million to General Revenue, a Bureau of Legislative Research staff member told lawmakers Tuesday.

Additional changes made by SB77 include:

• Increasing the maximum salary of all current pay grades by 10%

• Changing hazard duty pay rules so Department of Corrections employees temporarily assigned to a maximum security facility may receive hazard pay

• Creating a recruitment incentive program that follows the same process as the special compensation awards program, including the awarding of up to $5,000 or 40 hours of leave 

• Requiring lawmakers to approve any amendment to the current merit increase pay system before agencies can implement the requested changes

The bill contains an emergency clause and would go into effect on July 1 if approved by the Arkansas General Assembly.

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