ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, March 14, 1996 TAG: 9603140046
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: Associated Press
Raises for state workers would be financed in part by a change in next year's payroll schedule.
From January through August 1997, the state would move pay dates for most state employees forward by as much as 13 days under the $34.6 billion budget before Gov. George Allen.
In September 1997, workers again would be paid on the 1st and 16th of each month.
The plan, part of the budget approved Monday by the General Assembly, would ensure employees would go no more than 17 days without a paycheck.
Employees would be paid for the number of days they worked. Currently, paychecks cover the preceding two weeks and may not accurately reflect time spent working.
The revision matches state payroll practices with the private sector and some tax-supported colleges. Virginia already pays wage employees - those who have no benefits - on a days-worked basis.
The new pay schedule would help cover pay raises by allowing the state to reconcile salary records on a rolling basis, said John N. Bennett, staff director of the Senate Finance Committee.
But Joan S. Dent of the Virginia Governmental Employees Association said the change delays salary increases for workers, who would get one less paycheck in 1997 than they will get this year.
``It winds up being no salary increase at all in '97,'' she said. ``But they've taken that half a month of salary to fund a salary increase and that's good.''
The budget provides workers and state-supported local employees with a 4.35 percent salary increase Dec. 1. They would receive a 2 percent raise a year later.
The roll-forward would not affect commonwealth's attorneys, circuit court clerks and sheriffs, whose salaries are supplemented by the state.
The assembly included $100,000 for state officials to use to educate workers about the change.
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