State workers will get raises, official claims

CARSON CITY -- A spokesman for Gov. Jim Gibbons has a message for state workers and schoolteachers concerned that some or all of their 4 percent cost-of-living pay increase could be on the chopping block: It's not going to happen.

"We're not going to cut the colas," said Ben Kieckhefer, press secretary to Gibbons. "The colas are off the table. We're not going to delay them or touch them."

The idea of a special session of the Legislature to deal with the state's serious budget problems has not been ruled out, but the raises would not be one of the subjects on the table for discussion, he said.

The 4 percent raises will take effect July 1 for state employees and workers with the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Raises for schoolteachers and other education employees will take effect depending on the agreements they reach with their own school districts.

Clark County teachers recently approved a 4 percent raise that will take effect July 1.

There had been some suggestion that at least part of the cost-of-living salary increase, possibly 2 percent, was on the table for a cut at a special session of the Legislature.

A cut to 2 percent from 4 percent could have saved about $65 million to help keep the troubled state budget in balance.

However, such a reduction would have hurt school districts that already have signed agreements for pay increases for next fiscal year.

The districts would have had to pay the raises by finding money in their already reduced budgets, some school officials said.

Kieckhefer said last month that Gibbons never had any plans to cut the raises in half.

His comments Thursday put to rest the possibility that the cost-of-living increases would be altered by some other means, such as a delay in their effective date.

The 4 percent increase was approved by the Legislature in 2007, when the state's budget problems had not yet surfaced.

Contact Capital Bureau reporter Sean Whaley at swhaley@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3900.