Gov. Mead: State employee raises a budget priority

Nov. 30--CHEYENNE -- State employees could be getting their first raise in years if the Legislature accepts a $3.3 billion two-year spending plan that Gov. Matt Mead presented Friday.

Mead included a nearly $50 million request in his 2015-16 biennium budget proposal for pay raises.

This would give executive branch and University of Wyoming workers a 2.5 percent pay bump in both fiscal years 2015 and 2016.

It would also give community college employees a 2 percent salary increase and K-12 teachers a 2.09 percent raise for the biennium.

The governor said the state's inability to give raises during the past four years has hurt Wyoming's ability to recruit and retain its best workers.

"We are seeing the consequences of our failure to address the most valuable asset of any business n its employees," Mead wrote in his budget message to lawmakers. "Employee turnover is on the rise. No business succeeds without a qualified, motivated workforce."

Speaking by teleconference from Bahrain, where Mead spent Thanksgiving visiting Wyoming National Guard troops, the governor listed a number of the budget items he will be asking the Legislature to approve.

These include:

- $175 million in aid to local governments n an increase over the $135 million he requested in the current 2013-14 budget.

- $60 million for construction projects at the Wyoming State Hospital in Evanston, the Wyoming Life Resource Center in Lander and the Veterans Home of Wyoming in Buffalo.

- $15.6 million to complete the unified network, which would expand high-speed Internet access and capacity for the state.

- $14.1 million for the Laramie County Community College Flex Tech Building.

- $10.1 million, along with an equal federal match, to reduce the waiting list for the state's Medicaid developmental disabilities and acquired brain injury waivers.

- $13.1 million for construction projects at the Wyoming Boys School in Worland.

- $5 million to conclude the work on the University of Wyoming'sArena-Auditorium.

- $8 million to strengthen UW's engineering program, $10.5 million (including $3 million in previously appropriated Abandoned Mine Land funds) for UW's High Bay research facility and $5 million to establish an endowed chair in petroleum engineering at UW.

- $10 million to strengthen courthouse security across the state.

- $15 million to the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resources Trust Fund, including $10 million for project funding and $5 million to be put into the trust fund's corpus.

- $4.3 million to increase the state's tourism marketing efforts.

- $3.8 million in new funding to strengthen the Wyoming Air Service Enhancement Program, which is a subsidy program for airlines.

Mead also left $219 million in available revenue "on the table" for the Legislature to spend on other projects or put into savings.

But Mead said the proposed State Capitol renovation, and the related costs to find needed office space, is one of the areas that would be deserving of that money.

Mead is also asking the Legislature to not fund several programs.

This includes recommending, once again, that lawmakers hold off on accepting an optional expansion of the state's Medicaid program.

The measure originally was a key requirement of the Affordable Care Act. But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states could choose whether to accept the expansion.

Wyoming is among the nearly two dozen states that have not accepted the expansion.

More than 16,000 Wyoming residents could gain health insurance if the state accepted the expansion.

The federal government has pledged to pay for all the costs of the expansion group until 2017. At that point, states would be responsible for paying 5 percent of the costs and then would have to pay 6 percent in 2018, 7 percent in 2019 and 10 percent in 2020 and beyond.

But Mead said he still has too many concerns about the implementation of the new health-care law.

He said the recent troubles surrounding the rollout of healthcare.gov, the Obamacare website used to sign up for health insurance through the new exchanges, is just one example of the flaws in the health-care reforms.

"The problem with the (Affordable Care Act) is that, in large part, it presumes the exchange is going to work and you are going to get a lot of young, healthy people in the exchange, and in doing that you are going to cut the costs for everyone," Mead said. "And when you see the exchange, in my view, kicking more people off than actually getting them on, the whole pretext of how this is going to work is in doubt."

Mead's proposal also rejects a Wyoming Department of Transportation request for $50 million to help maintain the state's highway system.

Mead said he rejected the request because the department is getting enough money now through the recently passed 10-cent fuel tax increase.

WYDOT's budget request, however, maintains that the state's highway system will continue to deteriorate unless it can bridge its budget shortfall.

Unlike last year, Mead's budget does not propose broad cuts.

Mead and the Legislature trimmed 6 percent n or about $60 million in annual spending n from the budget during the 2013 session.

Mead said another round of cuts is unnecessary because of that action and because the state's revenue picture is improving compared to this time last year.

The state's Consensus Revenue Estimating Group reported last month that Wyoming's revenues beat projections by about $333 million for the fiscal year that ended June 30.

This is almost entirely due to a record-setting year for investment earnings.

And the forecasting group is predicting stable, but slow, revenue growth for the next four years.

"Wyoming is in the enviable position of being able to ask how much should we save n in dollars and in infrastructure investment n and how much should we spend on services, healthy communities and effective delivery of services," Mead wrote in his budget letter. "I recommend a budget that continues to save n both in dollars and in infrastructure development n and that ensures the delivery of effective, efficient services by cities and towns, and by counties and the state."

Mead's budget will now be passed along to the Legislature'sJoint Appropriations Committee.

The group will meet throughout December and January to consider his recommendations and hold budget hearings.

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