Wilson Would End Automatic Pay Hikes for State Workers

The Wilson Administration on Wednesday proposed ending nearly automatic pay increases for most state employees in favor of a new system that would give managers wider discretion to reward their workers based on performance.

Administration officials said Republican Gov. Pete Wilson will implement the changes for state managers on Jan. 1, revoking what had been a scheduled 5% cost-of-living raise and ordering top officials to give raises only to those managers whose performance was outstanding.

David Tirapelle, Wilson’s director of personnel administration, said the governor believes the state should apply the new system to rank-and-file employees in 1995. But that could only be done through negotiations with the state employees unions, which criticized the proposal on Wednesday.

“Philosophically, we are saying this should apply to everybody,” Tirapelle said in an interview. “We think pay should be based on performance and no pay increase should be guaranteed.”

Traditionally, state employees have had two ways of getting a raise. One was cost-of-living increases negotiated between the unions and the governor’s Personnel Department and subject to approval by the Legislature. These raises go to all employees.

In addition, employees are eligible for periodic merit increases. At certain points in their tenure as state workers, they are bumped up in the salary range unless a supervisor intervenes and says their performance was sub-par.

Tirapelle said Wilson would like to eliminate both forms of raises and give increases only to workers who excel.

Pat McConahay, spokeswoman for the California State Employees Assn., said the current merit system works fine and Wilson’s proposal would lead to a return to the cronyism that voters sought to banish when they put the current system in the Constitution in the 1930s.