In the coming fiscal year that starts July 1, 2006, and ends June 30, 2007, the state’s classified employees—more than 23,000 workers—will receive a 2.5 percent step increase effective Sept. 10, which will be reflected in Oct. 6 paychecks.

The step increases, which have not been funded for several years, are in addition to a 1.5 percent base salary adjustment, which workers will see in their July 14 paychecks.

KAPE president Brian Thompson says the union’s members are ecstatic. “They thought the steps were dead,” he says, noting that under the budget deal the union negotiated with the Legislature, approximately 2,000 employees will move to Step 16, “which has never been funded.”

In testimony earlier this year before the House Appropriations Committee and the Senate Ways and Means Committee, Thompson said “horrid inequities” developed in the pay system due to the absence of step increases over the past five years and the elimination of the first three steps under the previous administration. According to the union, an employee with eight or more years of service could conceivably be earning the same wage as a newly hired employee.

In addition to the 4 percent combined base pay and step increases, the budget includes retention incentives for a number of job classifications.

Thompson says more than 1,200 employees working in the skilled job classes, including carpenters, plumbers, painters and electricians, will receive an additional 30 cents an hour at the start of the year.

Uniformed officers working for the Department of Corrections and the Juvenile Justice Authority and employees at Larned state hospital, a maximum security facility, will receive an additional 2.5 percent step increase at the beginning of the fiscal year as well. And the budget deal raises the entry-level wage for correctional officers by more than $1,200.

The budget also dedicates nearly $340,000 for an interim legislative study of the state pay plan.

“Without a doubt, the Legislature has come through for our state’s classified workforce,” says Thompson. “Restoring step movement was our highest priority—and we got that accomplished.”