Committee Advances Bill to Close the Pay Gap for State Employees

Last week, the Legislature’s State and Local Committee voted to recommend passage of LD 1854, which would help improve wages for state employees. In describing their enthusiastic support for the legislation, both of the committee chairs referenced personal stories by MSEA SEIU 1989 coworkers who testified about the urgent need to close the pay gap at the May 12 hearing on LD 1854:

“The thing that really struck me is the gentleman who was down here and he works for DOT and they’re supposed to have six plow beats and they are now covering the six with five people – and they’re probably going to cover it with four,” said Senator Chair Tim Nangle. “And the reason that those plow beats are uncovered is because the pay isn’t high enough. This is a matter of public safety. This is a matter of providing good service to our residents. Everybody else’s story was very compelling as well, but you can really put your finger on the snow removal.”

Last month, Department of Transportation workers, fish hatchery workers, education representatives, insurance analysts, planning and research associates, building custodians, foresters and other state employees traveled to Augusta and told powerful stories to the committee about how the pay gap is harming their work lives and the public services they provide.

There is a severe staffing shortage in state government with 2,100 job vacancies in critical areas like child welfare, road maintenance and public safety. State-funded reports in 2020 and 2009 show State of Maine workers are underpaid by 15 percent on average — far more than that for scores of positions including chemists, maintenance mechanics, civil engineers, office assistants and associates, customer service representatives for our state parks, and the workers at the state-run schools in Maine's unorganized territories. That's because the current state employee classification and compensation systems haven’t been overhauled since their creation in the 1970s.

LD 1854 would require the State to finish and fund the classification and compensation study begun in 2019. LD 1854 establishes a schedule for future compensation studies and classification reviews and provides a mechanism to hold the state accountable.

Specifically, the Majority Report of LD 1854 would require the State to:

• Perform a compensation study every four years in the even year ahead of bargaining;
• Conduct a comprehensive classification review every 10 years;
• Complete and implement the results of the current classification and compensation studies by July 1, 2024. To ensure accountability, LD 1854 would require the State to give a 5 percent across-the-board pay increase to all state workers if it fails to complete the study and fix the pay gap by that date.
• Establish a State Employee Compensation Stabilization Fund to help fund closing the state employee pay gap. The stabilization fund would be part of the State’s official cascade for the distribution of unappropriated General Fund surpluses.