Excelsior Springs Representative Doug Richey offered this farewell address as the 2024 session was drawing to a close:
Tag: Doug Richey
House Budget Committee weighs proposed pay hike for state employees
The Parson Administration has made its case to the House Budget Committee for a proposed 5.5-percent pay increase for state employees.
The committee heard from the administration’s budget director, Dan Haug, who outlined the motivation for the plan that would cost about $72-million including $41-million in general revenue. It would set state employee pay at a minimum of $15 an hour and kick in February 1, if it can get through the legislature by then.
Haug said Missouri must do something to respond to recent and rapid changes in the labor market.
“We’re getting to the point where if we have more vacancies and more turnovers we’re not going to be able to operate our state facilities,” said Haug. He said some facilities with minimum staffing requirements, such as prisons and mental health facilities, have resorted to forced overtime to fill shifts.
“That’s not the way we want to run the state,” said Haug.
Haug said one reason for proposing a February 1 start date is that a stipend being paid out of federal money to state employees in some institutions came to an end at the end of December.
Most lawmakers seemed to agree with the desire to increase state employee pay.
“Let’s face it: we’re in competition with McDonald’s right now, so obviously something has to break there, without a doubt,” said Representative Don Mayhew (R-Crocker).
Excelsior Springs Republican Doug Richey agrees, but he has an issue with setting a new minimum baseline of $15 per hour for state employees’ pay. He said given existing pay structures that could set the income of some new state hires too close to the level of pay of long-term employees.
“Creating an arbitrary baseline prevents us from being able to be responsive to the market, as well as sends an unintended message that would be somewhat negative to those … who have been working for two decades,” said Richey. “You can work for 20 years in your job, have tremendous institutional memory and ability, but you’re really no different than a part-time custodial worker at 17 years of age with no experience.”
“I wanna get away from the $15 an hour because to me that’s just a number. That’s not what it’s going to take to get people in. I’m an employer … in unskilled jobs and I can’t get people for $17 an hour, so that $15 an hour is just a number we’re throwing out there and I believe that is for political reasons,” said Representative Richard West (R-Wentzville). “Let’s do realistic and what’s it going to take to hire? For one department it may require 15, for another department it may require 18, for another department it may require 22.”
Many legislative budget makers resist using federal funds to support ongoing expenses, like state employee pay. They refer to it as, “one time money.” Haug said this proposed pay hike relies only on state funds.
“Missouri’s revenues are doing very well. Right now the state’s economy is doing well. We have more people coming back to work. Our revenues are coming in very strongly. They came in very strongly last fiscal year. The consensus revenue estimate shows strong growth through fiscal year 23,” said Haug. “Even at a very conservative growth rate of 1.5-percent growth in general revenue we can easily afford this ongoing pay increase.”
Haug, who has worked with the state’s budget for more than 25 years, said, “I feel very confident that we can afford what we’re doing now and what we’re going to need to do in the future.”
Other legislators asked whether studies should be done to make sure the state needs the employees it has, or that pay increases would be going to the employees who are most needed or deserving. Haug said the state has reduced its workforce significantly in the past ten years, and said such an employee pay review could take months, and changes to the labor market necessitate a quick response. He said state employee turnover in some positions and pay levels has been as high as 55-percent.
The committee has not voted on the bill which includes the proposed pay plan, House Bill 3014.
Missouri House votes to exempt private and religious schools from minimum wage law
The Missouri House has voted to exempt private and religious schools from the state’s minimum wage law approved by voters in 2018. The bill would extend the exemption that already applies to public institutions, including public schools.
Voters passed a plan that will increase the minimum wage for hourly workers by 85-cents an hour each year until 2023, when it would reach $12 an hour. It is currently set at $9.45 an hour.
“Already private schools and religious schools have received price increases from vendors because of the new law and many could be threatened to even stay in existence. They have put building processes and plans on hold because of the minimum wage,” said bill sponsor Tim Remole (R-Excello). “I have private schools in my district that have a lot of increases in some of their tuitions. They just received letters, many of the parents, that they will receive a 10-percent increase over the next five years because of the minimum wage law.”
Whitewater Republican Barry Hovis said he remembers voting on the minimum wage proposal in 2018 and he thought that it exempted all schools, not just public institutions.
Republicans say the workers the bill would affect, including teachers’ aides, janitors, cafeteria workers, and bus drivers, are often individuals who choose to work in those private schools to support them, and are often retired.
“They love these kids. They could, quite frankly, take their skills and go somewhere else and make a tremendous amount of money beyond what they’re making in the context of the private school. They know that,” said Representative Doug Richey (R-Excelsior Springs).
Democrats said the legislation goes against the wishes of voters and attacks some of the state’s lowest-paid workers.
“Prop B passed in 145 of the 163 House seats, so it passed in many majority party House seats. It outperformed the Republican candidate in 19 House seats. It passed in 78 of the 114 counties, and it passed in the sponsor’s district by 51.5-percent,” said Representative Judy Morgan (D-Kansas City).
St. Louis representative LaDonna Applebaum (D) said she thinks voters understood that Prop B exempted public schools and not private.
The House voted 94-53 to send House Bill 1559 to the Senate.