Hefty pay raises for administrators in state government are drawing the ire of Operation Clean Government. “They’re going to get as much out of us as they can,” said Beverly Clay, first vice chairman of the 1,500-member citizens watchdog group. “And the taxpayer is footing the bill.”
OCG officials are rankled by the fact that state-employed counterparts throughout New England are working for far less than administrators in Rhode Island.
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But a spokesperson for Gov. Lincoln Almond suggests that some salary studies are guilty of comparing apples and oranges – and that, in fact, the disparity between salaries may not be as significant as it first seems.
For example, the salary for Rhode Island’s state controller as of Jan. 1, 2000 is $104,048. The same job in Vermont pays $74,568, while in New Hampshire, it pays $65,508.
Rhode Island’s personnel administrator is set to make $101,324 this year. Vermont’s personnel administrator will make $67,392, while in New Hampshire the job pays $74,372.
Clay said it makes no sense that administrative salaries in Rhode Island are not set at least in part by comparing them to neighboring states. On Dec. 20, 1999, OCG sent a letter to Gov. Lincoln Almond, expressing concern about a series of pay increases that were pending before the state’s classified pay plan board. The raises for at least 14 employees ranged from a yearly hike of between 10 percent and 28 percent.
In part, OCG wrote to the governor; “These kinds of increases are bloating the state payroll to the extent that they are and will take away from the state’s ability to fund other important state programs such as secondary and higher education, infrastructure needs and payments to cities in lieu of taxes.”
The OCG letter also pointed out that Rhode Island has a hugely disproportionate number of job classification titles compared with the federal government and other states. It is a process, according to OCG, that “bloats the salaries at the top of the scale, with everyone trying to do catch up with other employees they consider to be doing jobs of equal importance.”
The pay raises went through as proposed – further angering OCG.
“I find it disturbing that we sent this letter, and we never heard a word from him,” said Clay.
But Lisa Pelosi, a spokesperson for the governor, said the state has done comparisons with other New England states in the past, but that they are not used regularly because they are not necessarily reliable.
“It is difficult to compare the duties and responsibilities, for example, of the personnel administrator in Rhode Island and the personnel administrators in Connecticut and Massachusetts,” said Pelsoi.
Pelosi also points out that the Rhode Island salary figures include longevity pay, which could further complicate comparisons with other states.
Clay believes the state does not utilize comparisons with other states, because they may not like what they find.
“They like it the way it is,” she said.
