Feb. 13, 2003 – The Senate rejected the governor's request for more flexibility in distributing $4 million appropriated for pay raises for government workers in the Fiscal Year 2003 budget, but it was not for lack of discussion at Wednesday's special session, some of which became heated and emotional.
Senators and the government's chief financial officers sparred throughout the nine-hour session over Gov. Charles W. Turnbull's request that the word "unionized" be deleted from the budget legislation to make it more "inclusive." The money is intended for classified and unclassified employees, as many as 1,000 persons in all, including some covered by union contracts.
Pay increases for the employees were implemented last year. The $4 million is to sustain the raises, Ira Mills, Office of Management and Budget director, told the Legislature on Wednesday. He said $2.9 million would fund increases negotiated in union contracts. He and other officials said the remaining $1.1 million would go to non-unionized workers.
Testifying with Mills were Karen Andrews, chief government negotiator; Finance Commissioner Bernice Turnbull; Louis Willis, Bureau of Internal Revenue director; and Attorney General Iver Stridiron.
In early January, before the 25th Legislature convened, the governor signed a bill passed by the 24th Legislature on Dec. 23 appropriating $3.6 million from the Indirect Cost Fund and $2.5 million from the Industrial Development Fund to cover $6.1 million in pay increases negotiated after the start of FY 2003 with the International Association of Firefighters and the United Steelworkers of America.
However, he said in his cover letter to then-Senate President Almando "Rocky" Liburd that he opposed "raiding the Indirect Cost Fund to support non-federal salary increases for which this government lacks resources, because it jeopardizes all federal programs." (See "Property tax, lump-sum budget items approved".)
When Sen. Shawn-Michael Malone asked Stridiron why the governor signed the bill into law if he disapproved of the funding source, Stridiron said: "The governor determined that himself; we're not trying to get into that thought process."
Malone came back: "So now we're in the position of trying to find the money."
Most senators weren't buying the fiscal officials' arguments. Several expressed concern that the firefighters union would be left out, although Mills and others repeatedly explained that the one item had nothing to do with the other.
"The method of giving the raises is wrong," Sen. Louis Hill said. "It is something we should examine very carefully. I won't accept money for union employees and give it to anyone else. We sign the contract, we have to find the money."
OMB's Mills: 10 percent cuts in allotments
Mills, arguing on Wednesday for lump-sum budgets for the executive branch — which the Senate ultimately approved — said the administration has reduced agency and department allotments to about 90 percent of FY 2003 appropriations in order to cut costs.
Andrews said that since 2001, the government has negotiated 17 contracts, of which 13 have been implemented. Four remain in limbo, she said, "because we don't have the money."
According to Andrews, there was "no way" the government could have foreseen the "major reduction in our revenues." She said that "without taking drastic measures, we have to be realistic." She endorsed the idea advanced by Sen. Carlton Dowe that capital development projects are critical "to create revenues."
Stridiron lamented the plight of the pay-raised classified non-union workers (whose number varied in different testimony between 800 and 1,000). "The unions have their representatives, but these employees have no advocate," he said. "These are the very same people who haven't had a raise for 10 years, and they suffer because of all the hue and cry over raises for the about 20 cabinet members."
Stridiron suggested to Sen. Celestino A. White Sr. that he take on their cause: "My good friend is always the advocate for the poor and downtrodden. These people get left in the dust, and that is what has happened over the years."
And while on the subject of raises, Stridiron added: "I am the greatest advocate for senators' raises. If anyone had asked me, I would have been championing your cause. It's a 24-hour a day job." The attorney general, who put in three terms as a senator, one as Senate president, continued: "The amount of money we're talking about is $330,000 annually between everybody. I signed a piece of paper Ford sent last week that would have paid your increase for a year."
Further, he told the lawmakers, "You're the ones who've put this government in a far better position than most governments in this country. This government has not yet had to do what a lot of others have — and you're not worth it?"
Gathering steam, Stridiron went on, making reference to a demonstrator protesting large pay raises for top elected officials who stood outside Emancipation Garden during the governor's inauguration ceremony on Jan. 13 holding a sign reading "greedy pig." "Those raises determine we have a sense of self worth, and they refer to you as 'greedy pigs.' That person should never have been allowed to stand there!" he concluded amid much laughter and applause.
IRB's Willis: a personal pay-raise ultimatum
Perhaps inspired by the charged atmosphere in the chambers as the day grew longer and debate grew more heated, Willis, who is generally mild mannered and calm, giving credit to his staff, offered an opinion of his own about pay raises, namely his own.
"This job has almost killed me," he said. "I had to be put on medication. I was making $15,000 at another job, and I came to work at IRB for $11,000 many years ago. And now I demand the $85,000 I make. If we don't make it, I'll go back to a lesser position, less pressure. I don't take vacations or comp time, and we bring in $485 million a year. We paid out $46 million in refunds."
He said the directors of The West Indian Co., the Port Authority and the Government Employees Retirement System are making $125,000. "I've paid my dues," he said. "I was making $65,000 until this raise. It's a position that is hell. It's a big responsibility."
Willis also took the occasion to expressed his disappointment that the federal government has said the Virgin Islands must pay earned-income tax credit, although the law says territories are exempt. For Fiscal Year 2001, "We paid out $16 million in earned income credit," he said. "It's wrong what the feds did to us. Unless this body does something about it, we will have to continue. It's my responsibility."
When and how the pay raises came about
The issue of how to fund the pay raises for non-union government workers has its roots in the governor's announcement last May 28 that by executive order he was giving pay raises to his commissioners and about 1,100 to 1,200 other unclassified, non-union government employees.
Increases proposed by the administration covering 893 such employees would add about $8.7 million a year to the government payroll and benefit contributions — more than $2.3 million for upper-level personnel and nearly $6.4 million for mid-level employees. The Source on July 3 published the lengthy list of proposed salary changes generated by the Turnbull administration, reporting that most had by then been implemented, according to knowledgeable sources.
Turnbull announced the increases on May 28 after media queries were directed to Government House concerning his having raised a chauffeur
9;s salary to $58,000 from $28,500 and a confidential assistant's to $58,000 from $45,000, as indicated in Notices of Personnel Action dated Oct. 26, 2001. The governor subsequently gave the confidential assistant an additional increase, to $65,000.
The pay raises were granted under the authority of an executive order the governor issued on Nov. 5, 2001, which raised the ceilings on salaries to $97,000 for commissioners and other top administrators, $92,00 for assistant commissioners, $87,000 for deputy commissioners and $70,000 for division directors. In May, the governor said the highest salaries for commissioners and agency heads would be $85,000, up from the previous $65,000, and that this would be $1,900 more than the highest-paid classified employee.
The only department head not proposed for a pay raise was Stridiron — because he already was making $85,000. (See "Proposed exempt employee pay hikes total $8.4M".)
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