Waynesboro, Miss. (WDAM) – Secretary of State and Republican nominee for lieutenant governor Delbert Hosemann was in Waynesboro on Wednesday visiting community leaders, law enforcement and supporters in the area.
Along with his plan to speed up the process of getting a Mississippi driver’s license, Hosemann also talked at length about his proposal to raise state worker’s salaries.
Under the plan, state employees would receive up to a 3% pay increase, which would be funded by a 1% savings in administrative and overhead expenses in almost every state agency.
However, departments in education, mental health, Child Protective Services, corrections along with district attorneys and trial judges would be exempt.
Hosemann said that he turned back nearly $1.5 million to the general fund this year from his lower budget and is asking other departments and agencies to do the same.
“Reduce your budget by 1%, and then what we’re going to do is give that money back as pay raises to our employees that work so hard in Mississippi,” Hosemann said. “Everybody that you look at is very under compensated for the work that they’re doing, and so I’m asking our other state agencies to do what I’ve already done, take a 1% reduction and let’s give that as a pay raise back to our employees.”
Other states have benefited from similar proposals and in the 2019 legislative session, lawmakers approved their first across-the-board raise for employees in several years. The raise was intended to move positions closer to the relevant market rate so that employees would receive either a position realignment amount, if the amount to reach the market rate was less than 3%.