If people think that Scott Walker's Act 10 busting of public unions in Wisconsin was a one-time blow that got the state's books in order, and allowed for later increases for public employees that stayed the course, think again. This story from Thursday reiterates that budget deficits in Wisconsin are as bad as they ever have been, and they still provide an excuse to limit public employee pay.
Gov. Scott Walker's administration has suspended merit raises and retention pay increases to help deal with a budget gap that must be plugged by the end of June.
Walker sent a memo to state agency human resources directors on Feb. 5 announcing the freeze, the Wisconsin State Journal reported Friday.
It's unclear how many employees will be affected. University of Wisconsin faculty, academic staff and appointees will not be affected, but UW System spokesman Alex Hummel said the freeze will apply to classified employees, including custodians, administrative assistants, information technology workers, accountants and food service workers.
Well, that seems to be a little different than what
this pile of GOP-aganda from the MacIver Institute claims, which is that Act 10 leads to worker pay increases resulting from the savings generated by cutting workers' take-home pay. The argument is that by reducing automatic pay increases for all workers, it'll allow "flexibility" to pay truly outstanding employees.
But the numbers that we do know from the state's 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 Annual Fiscal Reports (which you can search from this page), shows that MacIver (a notorious right-wing stink tank in Wisconsin) is not telling the truth. The post-Act 10 years of 2012 and 2013 gave few increases, and while there was a nominal increase in 2013-14, with a 1% salary increase for many public employees (woo-woo!), even those will be limited for this year, in a desperate attempt to balance Walker's deficit-ridden budget.
Compensation Reserves paid out, 2011-2015
2011-12 $19.7 million
2012-13 $19.0 million
2013-14 $57.9 million
2014-15 (projected) $35.0 million
Even in the highest comp reserves year of 2013-14, that increase is less than 0.4% of the total appropriations of that year's budget. But the Walker Administration is still trotting out the claim that "raises will be coming", with the immunity-receiving Cullen Werwie quoted as saying the merit raises and retention pay items are supposed to resume in the following budget. Really? Because one look at the salary and compensation changes that are in the state budget show that any type of raise for most employees is highly unlikely. The amount set aside for increases in salaries and fringe benefits are set aside in a category known as "Compensation Reserves," and page 33 of the Budget in Brief includes the table of the budget figures, which includes those Comp Reserves.
Compensation Reserves, 2015-17 budget
2015-16 $10.7 million
2016-17 $18.5 million
That's it, less than 0.1% of a budget that exceeds $32.8 billion in appropriations over those two years. And it doesn't include the effects of inflation or any increases in fringe benefit costs. Unless you believe that there will be no inflation in the next 28 months (riiight), then this will inevitably mean pay and staffing cuts.
A similar trend has happened at the local level, where Act 10 "tools" have not made up for the cuts in state aids to schools and other local governments in the Age of Fitzwalkerstan. Given that the 2015-17 budget offers no increases to these communities, and is slated to cut $150 a pupil to public schools, the downward cycle of lower pay for public employees is likely to continue.
But you know who did do better in the aftermath of Act 10? Rich people and corporations, who have received billions in tax breaks during the last 4 years in Wisconsin, with little job or wage growth to show for it. You know who else got a whole lot of extra money the last four years? Scott Walker, who received more 3 times as many campaign contributions for his 2014 campaign than he did in 2010, from $11.1 million in 2010 to $34.7 million in 2014, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.
The connection is obvious- Act 10 and related moves to cut public employee pay may have reduced the amount of money that went to those people, and instead was combined with lower funding to schools and other local governments to allow for tax cuts to the rich and corporate. That money went back to Scott Walker and the Wisconsin GOP in the form of campaign contributions, those guys get re-elected, and the cycle begins all over again, this time with another group of workers to screw over by cutting wages, which allows for more money to be diverted to corporations and the rich.
Nice bit of theft, isn't it? It only sucks for the 98% of us that aren't in on it. Keep it in mind if your state's governor tries to pull this argument over- they never give the money back to workers once they take it away, but instead use it for their own selfish means.