Union protests pay raises for Gibbons’ staff

By Jeff Pope

Monday, March 23, 2009 | 3:40 p.m.

State union workers criticized the salaries of employees in Gov. Jim Gibbons’ office at a rally outside the Grant Sawyer State Building in Las Vegas today.

Members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees protested raises for the governor’s aides after Gibbons proposed in his budget a 6 percent pay cut for state employees.

Democrats in the state Senate questioned the staff salaries at a finance committee hearing last week.

Jeanine Lake, senior representative for AFSCME Local 4041, said some members of the governor’s staff received salary increases that amounted to more than 50 percent raises.

“You’ve got people out there that are probably going to have to cancel their health insurance premiums then the governor’s office gives ... increases to his staff,” she said. “It was just a real slap in the face.”

The governor’s press secretary, Dan Burns, said the salary increases are the result of people being promoted to new jobs with added duties.

Gibbons has 17 people on his staff, fewer than the legislatively approved 27, and overall payroll is down 12 percent from 2007, said Burns, who would also take a 6 percent pay cut.

“These people were promoted over the course of two and a half years,” he said. “These people were given new jobs and were moved up the ladder. And to have the AFSCME union discourage that kind of behavior just seems silly to me.”

There are other options the governor should investigate before cutting salaries, said Mark Carpenter, a senior corrections officer at the High Desert State Prison in Indian Springs and AFSCME Local 4041 steward.

State employees already have agreed to forgo cost of living allowances this year, to have merit increases suspended for two years, and to accept cuts in longevity pay and higher employee contributions to health and retirement benefits, said Carpenter, who’s been with corrections since 1990.

“Cuts are not the answer,” Carpenter said. “These cuts have other hidden costs that these administrators are not considering in the form of loss of experience and integrity.”

Union members are asking state legislators to find other ways to balance the budget without additional pay cuts. Some state agencies are considering worker furloughs as a way to temporarily cut spending, Lake said.

“We realize that it’s a terrible situation, but I think there’s still a lot that we don’t know yet,” she said.