ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, August 28, 1996 TAG: 9608290001
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
Gov. George Allen's administration has cut about 5,000 salaried state employees since Allen took office, promising to slash state government.
But the remaining employees are costing 3.3 percent more in salaries, according to information furnished by the state about its $3 billion payroll.
The issue has relevance in the New River Valley, which because of Virginia Tech and Radford University has one of the highest concentrations of state employees in Virginia outside of Richmond.
Both Tech and Radford have cut back on faculty and staff in the past three years, but both won't realize significant financial savings for several years while paying off the costs of buyouts and other incentives, officials said. The number of faculty and staff positions at Tech, for instance, has dropped from 5,959 to 5,533, or 7 percent, between the fall 1993 semester - before Allen took office - and the fall 1995 semester, said Dave Nutter, a Tech spokesman.
A statewide look at salaries paid since 1986 shows that the 3.3 percent growth in pay costs over the past two years is the second-slowest growth during any two-year period of the past decade.
Only in 1990-1992, after Allen's predecessor, Douglas Wilder, chopped the budget to prevent revenue shortages and avoid a general tax increase in a time of recession, was the growth rate slower. Then, the cost of state employee salaries grew about 2 percent.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch analyzed a database of state employees' pay recorded by the state's personnel department in May, similar to a database provided in November 1993. It includes salaried employees but not those paid by the hour, which would add another 14,000 or so people to the pool.
The higher payroll is understandable, said Robert D. Holsworth, a professor of politics and government at Virginia Commonwealth University.
``The reduction in the number of employees resulted in a very modest growth in the state payroll by historical standards,'' he said.
Secretary of Administration Michael Thomas said the 3.3 percent increase from 1994 to 1996 is inflated because it includes one-time buyout payments to employees who left or retired early.
The numbers also reflect raises for the remaining employees, Thomas said.
Other observers said the increases also could be attributed partly to reclassifying jobs - that is, increasing job responsibilities - and increases in university faculty salaries, which often are paid partly with private nontaxpayer funds.
The best-paid state employee, according to the database, is Dr. Robert W. Cantrell, a physician who heads the health sciences division at the University of Virginia. Cantrell's salary is $335,000.
The number of employees making more than $100,000 showed robust growth, with the figure reaching 783 this spring. In 1993, there were 494 employees in that payroll bracket.
That could be one reason payroll costs increased despite the loss of more than 5,000 employees.
``If you've got less people and you're spending more money, you've got more big-time salaries,'' said Pleasants C. Shields, a retired Parole Board employee and part-time lobbyist for the Virginia Governmental Employees Association.
Mary Lou Merkt, Radford University's interim vice president for business affairs, said that because of the up-front cost of 50 faculty and 63 staff buyouts at the school, the university will not begin to see savings until 1999. The salary and benefits of the 50 faculty members were $3.3 million annually. Although most of those people were replaced, the new employees are part-time and their pay and benefits totaled $1.6 million.
But Radford is not the place of relatively ostentatious paychecks. In fact just two employee salaries top $100,000 annually at the university, according to Merkt.
Tech, on the other hand, had 78 employees with a base salary of $100,000 or more, Nutter said. That does not include faculty whose base state salary is less than $100,000, but whose pay is augmented by private sources, such as endowed professorships.
One Democratic lawmaker suggested that some of the growth in six-figure salaries had a lot to do with political rewards.
``It seems to me like there's been too much patronage in this administration,'' said Sen. Richard Holland, D-Isle of Wight.
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