HARTFORD, CT – The House and Senate voted Tuesday to increase pay for some state employees by a total of up to 4.5% for the next fiscal year, an increase of $154 million.
Both the House vote – 106-44 with one absent – and Senate vote – 24-12 – were along party lines, with Democrats in favor and Republicans opposed. The votes came after lengthy debate.
The increase for some of about 46,000 employees covered by the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC) would total 4.5%, including 2.5% in a general wage increase and 2% for a step increase. Steps are pay scales that reflect how long an employee has been with the state, although not all the employees qualify for that part of the raise.
The $154 million pricetag includes $32.7 million for an 4.5% increase to the annual block grant that supports the University of Connecticut. That money is controlled by UConn and does not reflect the exclusive way the university pays for salaries, said Rep. Mike D’Agostino, D-Hamden.
Democrats have said the wage reopener money has already been appropriated but Republicans spoke against the measure, saying it’s too rich for taxpayers.
“To the point of affordability, if we can’t afford it now, at a time when we have a huge budget reserve fund, and have been putting away money for other purposes for years, then when could we ever?” said Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney, D-New Haven. “Now is the time we have to recognize that is a reasonable wage reopener in the SEBAC agreement, and it’s fully paid for in last year’s bipartisan budget.”
Rep. Tammy Nuccio, a Tolland Republican and ranking member on the Appropriations Committee, said she would favor a total increase of 3.5%, including 2% general wage and a 1.5% step increase.
Should the measure be defeated, the contract reopener would go to binding arbitration.
The House vote took place as a line of Senate Republicans spoke against the measure well into the afternoon.
Sen. Ryan Fazio, R-Greenwich, noted that in addition to raises, state employees have received separate bonuses totalling $3,500 and $1,000 over the life of the contract. He contended that state workers have received a 30% pay increase over the life of the SEBAC pact compared to 17% for private sector workers, who have to pay for those public sector salaries.
“If this is fair, then I don’t know what isn’t,” Fazio said during Senate debate.
Sen. Gary Winfield, D-New Haven, responded to the issue of the cash payments.
“The bonuses, that were really lump sum payments that allowed us to save money, should be talked about that way, so that when people listen to us, they know what happened,” Winfield said. “You want to talk about unfair, it’s unfair to say we support state workers, and then talk about them in a way that we know people outside of this building will understand in a way that villainizes them.”
Some of the opposition focused on comparisons between private and public sector salaries. Nuccio said statistics released by the state are skewed and don’t reflect reality. Several Republican senators stated that while they discussed pay increases for state workers, nonprofit organizations that contribute to state services under the dual delivery system have been underfunded.
“When I think back for the last ten and twenty years, I think about the costs that they have had to incur,” said Sen. Tony Hwang, R-Fairfield. “But I don’t see cost of living index increases for them. In fact, I don’t even see until recently in the past few years increases in reimbursement rates. That’s something I struggle with.”
Sen. Catherine Osten, D-Sprague, Senate chair of the appropriations committee, responded to Hwang, noting that the legislature had provided more than $300 million to nonprofits in the last five years, with an additional $103 million added to the biennium budget.
“That’s not chump change,” Osten said. “Not the best we could do, and we’d certainly like to be able to do more.”
The Connecticut Department of Labor reports that the March 2024 private sector workweek, not seasonally adjusted, averaged 33.4 hours, up five-tenths of an hour from the March 2023 average of 32.9 hours, which it describes as a “large annual advance.” The March 2024 private sector weekly wage averaged $1,248.83, higher by 6.2% from a year ago.
