Contact: Mark
Beutler, Director of Communications
405.524.6764 (o) 405.429.0533 (c)
MarkB@OPEA.org
“THIS SYSTEM REEKS OF PREFERENCE:”
OPEA CALLS FOR FAIR PAY RAISES FOR ALL
For Immediate Release: July
15, 2008
Rising grocery and gas bills are nipping at the wallets of
most state employees; but not all state employees are suffering as much as
others. The Oklahoma Public Employees
Association is angered at the recent five percent pay raise given to 267 judges
and elected officials and calls for all state employees to be placed under this
same system.
“Every state employee deserves to be paid a fair and
competitive wage,” said OPEA Executive Director Sterling Zearley. “What we object to is the fact that a small
group of state employees and elected officials do not have to go through the
same process of legislative approval for their raises. What is good for judges should be good for
all other state employees.”
OPEA points to the Board of Judicial Compensation as the
problem. “Most state employees are at
the mercy of the state legislature. But the Board of Judicial Compensation as
well as the Board on Legislative Compensation provides an elite group of public
employees an opportunity for pay raises for which 99.9 percent of state employees
are not eligible. What we have in Oklahoma is not a pay
system,” said Zearley, “but a caste system.
We are concerned the average state employee has gone without a pay raise
for several years, while judges and statewide elected officials are taken care of
in another manner. The same rules about
pay raises should apply to both the Child Welfare worker as well as the Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court.”
Beginning July 1, the Chief Justice of the Oklahoma Supreme
Court began earning $147,000--a seven-thousand dollar pay raise. 84 specials judges in the court system saw
their salaries increase from $100,050 to $105,053.
“The elected officials salaries will not increase during the
current term but go into effect after their re-election,” said Zearley. “It is completely immoral for the state to
continue to operate under this system.
OPEA calls for the establishment of a Board of Public Employee
Compensation to address all employee pay in a fair, market based system. Let’s
bring all public employees salaries and pay needs out into the open,” Zearley
said. “This current system reeks of
preference.”
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Posted on
Tue, July 15, 2008
by Mark Beutler