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Dunleavy administration of legislators on the delayed salary study

Dunleavy administration of legislators on the delayed salary study

Alaska legislators raised concerns during a Thursday audience about delays in launching a study That could affect the compensation of some of the more than 14,000 state employees.

The administration of Governor Mike Dunleavy last year delayed the launch of the study, which was originally due in June 2024, citing missing data. The administration classified an early version of the study published in June, which makes it inaccessible to legislators and the public.

Legislators approved $ 1 million in funds for the study in 2023, under the understanding that their findings would be incorporated into the budget process of this year by determining whether compensation for state employees was adequate. The study was seen as an effort to combat continuous recruitment and retention challenges.

The current vacancy rate of the State is around 16.6%, said Kate Sheehan Personnel and Labor Relations Division on Thursday. The lack of personnel in state agencies has had drastic impacts in state services in recent years, including a booking in food processing and low -income Alaska.

Representative Ashley Carrick, a Fairbanks Democrat who chairs the Chamber State Affairs Committee, said she convened a hearing on the study on Thursday because she was worried about the Dunleave administration’s decision to delay the release of a study that has the Potential to significantly affect the workers’ workers ”in Alaska.

The commissioner of the Department of Administration, Paula Vrana, told the legislators during the hearing that the study will now be published at the end of March, nine months after it was originally expected.

The delay in the study makes it virtually impossible for legislators to incorporate the findings in the budget next year.

The Alaska State Employee Association, a union that represents more than 8,000 of the direct employees of the State, is currently under contractual negotiations with the State.

Heidi Drygas, director of the Union, said that the new delivery date for the study is several days after a deadline of mid March for legislators to receive new negotiation contracts for ratification and inclusion in the state budget. That means that, in effect, even if the study recommends significant changes in the compensation of several state employees, these changes cannot be included in the contract that is currently under negotiation.

“If the point of the salary study is to inform wages for state employees and our collective bargaining agreements are three years old, then obtaining that information after our salary information is due to the legislature is not very useful,” Drygas said. “The objective of the information is to report whether or not to increase wages.”

Vrana told legislators on Thursday that the study was delayed because it did not reflect increases approved by legislators last year for approximately 1,200 state employees, and increases for other state employees negotiated through union contracts. These increases were approved by legislators months after the salary study had been commissioned.

“After receiving some early drafts from the report, it was observed that the significant and relevant factors had changed since the study began,” Vrana told the legislators.

Sheehan, with the division of staff and labor relations, acknowledged that since the State is constantly negotiating with at least some of the numerous unions that represent the employees of the State, any study is inherently “a snapshot over time.”

“But this was significant enough to think that it was important enough to ensure that the legislature and the administration had the best available data,” said Sheehan.

However, Sheehan said that the report would not include information about the millions of dollars that the Dunleavy administration has requested in temporary recruitment and retention bonds. The unique, used bonds attract soldiers, corrections officers and numerous other difficult positions to fill, are not included in employee contract contract salaries, but in some cases they significantly increase compensation.

“Including that would have biased the information,” said Sheehan, because the bonuses are not available for similar work classes.

Carrick said it was important that the study took into account all “factors related to salaries.”

“If we really want to understand the recruitment and retention factors related to salaries, the bonds are part of that conversation,” said Carrick.

The legislators interrogated Sheehan and Vrana during the hearing on the preliminary report produced by the private contractor who carried out the study, called Segal, and if the administration could free it to the legislators even when Segal was working to update it.

Shaheen said that the preliminary reports submitted to the Administration Department were considered privileged by the Law department, and would not be released to legislators or the public.

“It is essential that the study incorporates adequate, accurate and updated information, because the study recommendations could substantially affect the state budget,” said Vrana.

Some legislators in the committee questioned the need to hide the initial results of legislators.

“I do not understand why we did not have a preliminary report that could have been updated with a supplement,” said representative Ky Holland, a Anchorage Independent.

“What is so unique to Alaska, is that we have had a great shortage of the workforce,” said representative Andi Story, a Democrat from Juneau. “We know there is an urgency to recover this report.”

“I think there would have been an urgency transmitted to the company, and I wonder why the study could not have been accelerated, knowing that we were going to start,” Story added.

Vrana said the contractor is “working as widely as possible.” When asked if there was any way to receive a draft of the study before the end of March, Vrana and Sheehan said they did not have an immediate response for legislators.

A salary study of this scope has not been carried out, which analyzes compensation for a wide variety of jobs throughout the state government, has not been carried out in more than a decade. A 2009 study found that the State had paid excessively in many employment classifications, said Sheehan. In 2013, a study found that the State needed to update its work descriptions, added Sheehan.

This year’s study will compare the payment of the State with compensation for other states, municipalities of Alaska and private employers.

The members of the republican minorities of the committee were more receptive to the delay of the administration to release the report.

“I don’t see this as a big problem,” said representative Kevin McCabe, a great republican of the lake. “I only see this as the normal way in which the business is done.”

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