State worker compensation key issue in upcoming session
The pay raises that disappeared for state employees this year will loom large over Virginia lawmakers when they convene Wednesday in Richmond for a 46-day session that will be dominated by the state budget and a $1.26 billion shortfall in revenues to pay for it.
Nowhere is the challenge more apparent than at Virginia’s public mental hospitals, which face the highest staff turnover rate in state government at the same time as a surge in admissions to provide “the bed of last resort” for people who pose a threat to themselves or others.
“We have some significant issues in behavioral health, and it goes back to compensation,” said Sen. Emmett W. Hanger Jr., R-Augusta, co-chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
The loss of a scheduled 3 percent raise due to the revenue shortfall has intensified the exodus of direct-care employees from state hospitals — as well as turnover of state troopers and correctional officers — whose pay lags far below wages in the private sector for some of the toughest jobs in Virginia government.
Read more: http://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/government-politics/article_f2786699-5c2a-5531-93ad-d9c86d532151.html
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