BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Lawmakers questioned $70 million in pay raises that state agencies are giving employees next year.
Members of the House Appropriations Committee said Wednesday that too many employees are getting salary bumps without a comprehensive review of their performance.
Government employment rules allow agencies to give their workers a “merit pay” increase each year based on their annual evaluations. But the salary boost can’t be less than 4 percent, and the raises are largely automatic and viewed as a way to give employees a cost-of-living adjustment.
Rep. John Schroder, a Republican from Covington, cited figures that show, on average, 96 percent of state government employees get the raises. He says he doesn’t believe that all those workers are performing at a level to deserve a “merit” increase.
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