By Dave Thompson
Bismarck, ND – North Dakota state workers used the Martin Luther King Day holiday to ask lawmakers to approve a pay raise.
About 150 state employees came to a House Appropriations Committee hearing on the pay measure.
Governor John Hoeven has suggested raising state worker pay by four percent -- for each of the next two years. In the second year -- state agencies would need to find one percent of the raise in their budgets. A separate bill in the House would provide a four percent pay raise each year, without the savings provision.
"My family of four qualifies for low income, subsidized lunches at school, and fuel assistance," said Mike Stebbins, a heavy equipment operator for the Department of Transportation. It's his job to plow part of U-S Highway 83 when it snows. He makes almost 28-thousand dollars a year. "Personally, working on Highway 83, dodging semis in a snowplow, I don't think I get enough money."
Gary Feist is a state Tax Department auditor. He says North Dakota state workers have salaries that are far behind the market. And he says the state needs to keep up its benefit of fully paid health insurance for state workers.
"State employees realize we can't make up these differences overnight," Feist told the committee. "But the state must start to close the gap, if we want to be competitive and maintain a quality workforce."
The total package -- salary plus fully paid health insurance -- will cost nearly $53 million. In addition, there are equity pools, worth another $5 million.