Delegates are advancing a pay raise bill for state employees whose wage scales are established in code, providing an even bigger bump for troopers than had been considered before.
Other state workers who have been promised a raise will have that reflected in the broader budget bill to be passed by the end of the legislative session.
The bill that the House Finance Committee advanced this afternoon applies to teachers, other professional school workers like counselors, school service personnel and State Police troopers. SB 531 has already passed the state Senate.
The bill originally had a $2,550 raise for troopers.
The House Finance Committee changed that to be a $10,000 raise for all troopers.
That move followed debate on the House floor late last week about a bill that would have provided locality pay for troopers based on economic factors of different regions of the state. That idea was to ensure trooper positions are competitive in regions that generally have higher wages.
The bill with locality pay for troopers, HB 4473, wound up being moved to the House’s inactive calendar, where it remains.
On Friday, Delegate Geoff Foster, R-Kanawha, offered an amendment to make what would have been locality pay instead apply to troopers across the state.
In the moment, House Finance Chairman Eric Householder, R-Berkeley, disagreed with doing so. “It seems to be basically an innocuous amendment, but it is not. It lacks fiscal responsibility by removing the guardrails of the three counties,” he said, referring to Jefferson, Berkeley and Morgan in the Eastern Panhandle.
Householder elaborated, “Right now the Eastern Panhandle areas are losing troopers. It’s harder to retain ’em, recruit ’em.”
Other delegates from other areas of the state said additional factors should be considered. “Were different things taken into account like the crime rates of the different counties or anything of that nature?” asked Delegate Brandon Steele, R-Raleigh.
Delegate Dana Ferrell, R-Kanawha, chimed in during that Friday debate, “I don’t know how we can pick winners and losers.” He suggested applying the $10,000 raise for all troopers would add up to $6 million overall.
“I don’t know of any more priority. These men and women put their lives on the line every day, and I don’t know how you say the ones in Morgan County are more at risk than the ones in Raleigh County or Mercer County or Hancock County or wherever they’re at.”
After an extended debate that day, delegates decided to move that bill off the agenda.
The result was the altered pay raise bill , taken up in House Finance today, with the $10,000 for troopers across the state.