Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Guinn will unveil plan for state salary schedule

CARSON CITY -- Governors and Legislatures in the past have used pay raises as a means to reward high ranking state employees or to punish those in the doghouse.

"It's been a hodgepodge," Michael Hillerby, chief of staff to Gov. Kenny Guinn, said last week.

Hillerby was referring to the unclassified pay bill in which the governor recommends the salary for some 900 top administrators and others. The Legislature then has the final say how much each employee will receive.

Guinn, in his biennial budget to be released Jan. 24, will unveil a plan setting up an 11-tier salary schedule for the unclassified employees. And 287 state workers, who now enjoy job protection in the civil service system, will be shifted to the unclassified service. For instance, wardens at the state prisons, public information officers and executive assistants will be unclassified. Some deputy directors or assistant directors will lose their classified service protection.

Nobody, however, will lose salary in the proposed transition that would need be approved by the Legislature to take effect, Hillerby said Friday.

"All of those in existing positions will be grandfathered in at their existing salaries," he stressed. And some will receive slight increases in salary.

There was no consistency in the past involving governors and Legislatures in how salaries for the upper echelon of government were established, he said. Some administrators have fallen far behind, Hillerby said.

Scott MacKenzie, executive director of the State of Nevada Employees Association, said he wants to take a look at how far down the ladder the administration proposes to unclassify people. He doesn't want to see any of the 287 people in the lower levels, such as secretaries, taken out of civil service protection.

MacKenzie also said he wants to ensure that an employee in a classified position could stay classified until he or she retired. Then the position would be unclassified, subject to appointment without going through the personnel system and taking examinations.

Hillerby said that while the administration is willing to look at the suggestion to keep the position classified until retirement, no final decision has been made on that plan.

Of the 287 positions being unclassified, 101 are physicians, dentists and psychiatrists in state service.

A study was started about three years ago by Jeanne Green, director of the state Department of Personnel, into the unclassified system. The study found that some of the salaries for the positions have a very wide range.

In some cases, three division directors in a department may be earning one salary and a fourth administrator may be getting less for the same type of duties.

There are more than 16,500 employees in state government. And most of them are in the classified service, assigned a specific grade class. They cannot be fired, except for cause. They are entitled to a yearly evaluation and if favorable, receive a step up in that pay grade. That usually results in a 4-5 percent raise.

But about half of the classified employees in state government are at the top of the ladder in the step system and do not qualify for the annual raise.

Unclassified employees are not part of the step system. And they are subject to firing without cause. They are appointed to the jobs without going through the testing and other procedures of the state Personnel System. But they do not have the civil service protection.

Asked whether the new unclassified positions would be subject to firing, Hillerby said, "We've got a pretty good record of not turfing people for no reason."

Taking positions like public information officers into the unclassified position could raise another question. During the impeachment trial of Controller Kathy Augustine, the attorneys for the Legislature issued a legal opinion that unclassified state workers may engaged in political activities during hours of state employment or at any other time.

Under one scenario, a governor or a state official could use a public information officer to pump out press releases during state working hours, if the legal opinion is right. Hillerby says he doesn't agree with the opinion of the legislative attorneys.

He said it is "not acceptable" to use either classified or unclassified workers for political purposes during state time. He also said that should it be necessary, the rules on such use will be clarified.

Hillerby added that the governor could issue an executive order to ensure that the unclassified would be prohibited from working on campaigns during the state work day.

The new unclassified pay plan being proposed by the Guinn administration would look something like the classified salary system, only there wouldn't be automatic pay steps each year.

But both classified and unclassified will be entitled to cost-of-living raises approved by the Legislature. Guinn says he will recommend a "modest" cost-of-living raise for all employees in his budget.

The State of Nevada Employees Association has asked for 5 percent this July and 5 percent in July 2006.

The 11 pay scales for the unclassified employees will be organized based on the size of the agency, the importance of the job and the responsibilities, said Hillerby. If an executive were given more responsibilities or more employees to supervise, his or her position could be shifted into a higher pay rate.

"There's a lot of support for the concept," said Hillerby. "Anytime it starts getting personal, people get nervous."

In the era of the Equal Rights Amendment, some legislators who opposed the amendment sought to punish female administrators who support it. They devised a plan not to give these women pay raises. A battle ensured in the Legislature and the raises were granted to the women.

In other instances, a state executive may draw the wrath of a legislator for a stance on a certain issue leading to that employee being passed over when the pay increases were handed out to unclassified employees. Or, an unclassified employee who did a favor for a lawmaker could be in line for a pay raise that exceeded that given other similar employees.

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