Minutes 11/28/1978 - Laserfiche WebLink

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(13 ) The same applies on a local level. I don't mean to single out a particular agency, but this year according to Joyce Jacobs, Administrative Assistant of the Mental Health Clinic, Jf1e..,W ~ ~ 15 employees of the~Clinic received merit increases plus cost-of-living raises. What bothers me is that merit in- creases are supposeJto be for exceptional performance. If performance? routine, ~I ~ 1.111, how do we encourage exceptional merit increases are :r. -'- if we don't encourage exceptional performance, we cannot increase productivity which all of us, as public servants, are pledged to do. The effect of making merit pay increases routine and then lumping in cost-of-living increases is to distort out of all proportion the total pay our public servants are getting. Employees under the state pay plan who are eligible for merit increases receive a 4.8% merit increase on top of a 4.8% cost-of-living increase which brings their total yearly salary increase to 9.8%. (I realize that 4.8% and 4.8% add up to 9.6% - - but if you work it out you will find that a 4.8% raise on top of a 4.8% raise compounds to a 9.8% total salary increase.) If an employee under the state pay plan was making $10,000 in 1972 and received a 9.8% increase for six years, his 1978 salary would be $17,523. If another employee was making $10,000 in 1972 and received a raise each year equal to the rise in the consumer price index, his 1978 salary would be $15,280. In other words, an employee's salary computed under the state pay plan, assuming he was eligible for and received all merit increases, would rise 42% more than the increase in the