No state employees will be getting raises at the start of the coming fiscal year, which begins July 1, and raises that some university boards approved this spring have been suspended, the state’s top fiscal official said Sunday.
Richard Weiss, director of the state Department of Finance and Administration, said the decision to forego raises for all state employees for six months, until officials are confident the recession is over, was made at a meeting Thursday. A directive to that effect went out to all state-supported universities and state agencies that day.
“The decision was to suspend any kind of pay increases for the first two quarters of the fiscal year, to make sure the economy is coming out of the recession,” Weiss told The Associated Press.
Suspension of the university raises that had been planned, he said, would help assure that “we don’t have to deal with something worse” if the state’s economy doesn’t recover.
The situation will be reviewed in January, Weiss said, “and any adjustments will be made at that point.”
The Legislature’s fiscal session last winter provided no money for raises at state agencies, so most state workers weren’t expecting any pay increase on July 1.
But state-supported universities and colleges, where budgets use not only money provided by the state but funding generated by tuition and fees, can provide raises independently if their boards approve. State fiscal officials, however, have the authority to cancel or suspend any such raises.
The boards of both the University of Central Arkansas at Conway and the Arkansas State University system based in Jonesboro approved raises for faculty and support staff at separate meetings May 7.
At UCA, the board approved a 2.2 percent raise, effective July 1. Suspension of the raises was announced to employees in an e-mail.
“We, like others, are concerned by this latest directive by the state,” the e-mail said. “UCA is working with the other higher education institutions to address this concern and to see what options, if any, would be available to us.”
The ASU system board had approved a 2 percent cost-of-living increase, also targeted to start July 1. The school announced suspension of the raise over the weekend.
ASU-Jonesboro Chancellor Robert L. Potts said, however, that the school hopes to provide the raises in January, and make them retroactive to July 1 if state officials allow. Money that would have been used to provide the raises beginning July 1 will be put in escrow until January to make sure funding is available for the retroactive raises, he said.