More than 60 percent of states pay their rank-and-file employees better than Virginia.
And when compared to the average salary among Virginia’s private-sector employees, the outlook for state government worker pay in Virginia is even worse, ranking 48th in the nation.
Those startling statistics come from a recently released report from the state’s Department of Human Resources Management using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The numbers are in stark contrast to this year’s analysis of compensation details for 104,552 state employees by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, which shows the average state salary of roughly $52,553 — nearly identical to the average salary in the state’s private sector.
The disparity reflects the difference between the average of all state employees — including highly-paid university faculty and doctors and judges — and classified state employees, such as people who repair potholes, guard jails and staff offices.
According to the state’s report, the average salary for classified employees, which do not include university faculty or any branch of government other than executive, is about $43,800. The median salary is about $39,000.
When those higher earners are added to the mix, the median rises to nearly $43,900.
From what I have been hearing on this blog and on the TV, public employees are raiding and raping the public coffers. Apparently that must be happening some place other than in the Old Dominion.
Let’s hear what the union folks ….errr…professonal association folks have to say about all this:
Ron Jordan, executive director of the Virginia Governmental Employees Association, said the average salary of state employees was misleading.
“The state employee average numbers are heavily weighted by the faculty and administrative staff in higher education who tend to be paid at wage levels far above the average classified state employee,” he said. “That inflates the average tremendously.”
Jordan pointed out that in the state’s comparison between certain individual occupations, state employees are paid an average of 25 percent less than their counterparts in the private sector.
According to DHRM, 25 percent of state employees make $31,000 or less. While the median salary of the entire workforce represented by the database is about $43,900, the median salary of the classified workforce — that is, rank and file employees who fix potholes, guard prisoners and crunch numbers in state offices — is nearly $39,000, according to DHRM statistics.
Historically, while the public sector has paid less in many areas, the benefits offered by the state have made up for that disparity. But even those advantages have been diminished.
According to DHRM, the level of benefits as a percentage of salary for classified state workers has dipped dramatically from nearly 43 percent in fiscal year 2009 to just over 27 percent in fiscal year 2011. The state’s fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30.
“The times, they are a changin’,” Jordan said. “Benefits are not the incentive they used to.
It used to be that people traded top dollar for decent benefits. Those top benefits are what attracted highly skilled employees to jobs in the public sector that perhaps didn’t pay what the private sector counter part jobs paid. People are now rethinking the idea of benefits as belts become tighter and the public arena has grown so cynical of public employees. I truly believe it is generally a mantra rather than thought behind what is being said.
When one looks at words that denote central tendancy like ‘average’ and ‘median’ we are just looking at the middle. If the median salary is $43k, then half the salaries are above that number and half are below. That really doesn’t tell us much. On the other hand, we don’t expect the pot hole fillers to be making what our heads of the environmental science departments make either. The chief mining inspector probably makes more than the college meter maid.
There is no reason for anyone to make less money because they work for the state of Virginia. We are the Mother of Presidents, We are the state for lovers, not cheap-skates. Those taking pot shots at state employees had better be prepared to back it all up with facts and figures.
If bad times are coming down the pike, we need to make like General Bea and rally behind the Virginians…the public employee Virginians, because those folks will be the first hurt by the mini-recession that might fall out of cutting defense spending. That automatic trigger is bound to sweep through Maryland and Virginian. Hopefully the impact will be light and over with soon. Congress needs to get its act together immediately.
