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Missouri lawmakers pledge support for state employee pay raise

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri’s state employees are hoping that sustained pressure will bring a bipartisan group of lawmakers together to raise the wages of the lowest paid state workers in the country.

Missouri’s state employees rank dead last in average annual salary, but Missouri ranks 34th in cost-of-living. AFSCME, which represents state and local employees, is hoping to reconcile those to numbers and raise the average state wage roughly 14 percent, placing Missouri at 34th in employee pay.

No specific plan was offered, but Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, D-St. Louis, and Rep. Jay Barnes, R-Jefferson City, told reporters they would be actively exploring a five-year plan to gradually increase state employee pay.

“Missouri workers deserve better pay,” Nasheed said. “I wholeheartedly endorse a five year plan to bring state workers to the cost of living level that they deserve and I encourage all my colleagues to stand with my and many other organizations and say that [state workers] deserve a raise.”

Since 2009, Missouri worker pay has been all-but stagnant. Barnes called a raise for those workers — which include nurses for veterans, highway patrol officers, and many more — is a bipartisan issue.

AFSCME Council 72 Executive Director Jeff Mazur said that the hope was to sustain a conversation about worker pay now through next year’s budget process, rather than limiting the debate to “a week or two” during budget passage.

Missouri’s low pay is costing them quality employees, lawmakers said. The state employee turnover rate for 2014 was about 17 percent, a costly endeavor when new hiring and training is consistently needed to fill staff positions.

The average annual wage for a state employee in Missouri is just shy of $40,000/year. AFSCME and supportive lawmakers hope to increase that number by about 3 percent a year to ultimately get to about $45,000/year in average annual salary.