JBC staff urges law to reorder salary-increase calculations for clearer costs; panel delays action

Alfredo Kem, JBC staff, told the Joint Budget Committee that the current order in which the executive branch submits salary increases hides the true cost of structural range adjustments and that reordering the process would improve transparency. "I am recommending that the committee pursue legislation to require the executive branch to implement salary increase adjustments using the order of operations and methodology that I include in here," Kem said during a figure-setting presentation.

Kem outlined three distinct components employees experience: (1) step increases tied to time and experience; (2) across-the-board COLA adjustments tied to inflation; and (3) structural job-class or salary-range changes that should be targeted by system maintenance studies rather than an annual across-the-board range move. He said the executive request historically applies the ATB/COLA first, which masks the costs of range and step changes: "it ends up the idea is that, oh, state all we really need is an across the board, and that takes care of 90% of everything that we need," Kem said.

Committee members praised the analysis but raised budget and bargaining concerns. Senator Kirkmeyer warned the committee must consider what the state can afford. Vice Chair Bridges and other members urged conversations with the partnership agreement parties and administration staff to avoid reopening negotiations. Several members said they wanted more time to digest the proposal before authorizing drafting.

Kem recommended three statutory changes for the Partnership Agreement Act: require a fiscal document from the executive estimating partnership costs, make higher-education classified costs transparent (even if not funded), and adopt an annual list of occupational classes for targeted system maintenance studies. The committee did not immediately vote to adopt the order-of-operations proposal; members instead authorized further discussion and stakeholder outreach before drafting any bill.

The committee moved on after thanking staff for the analysis; Kem said staff would return with follow-up materials if members wanted to proceed. The figure-setting process will continue in subsequent meetings with additional briefings and potential drafting requests.