President Elson S. Floyd this week asked Steve DeSoer, executive director of Human Resource Services, to lead development of a systematic approach to Administrative and Professional staff salaries for implementation no later than September 1, 2008. That is the anticipated date of next year’s general or mass salary increase.
The request was explained in a letter President Floyd sent to WSU’s Administrative and Professional employees, a good number of whom could be affected by impending salary changes for the Civil Service or classified staff they supervise.
As the result of work at the state level on civil positions and salaries, some WSU classified staff may soon make close to or the same salary as their AP supervisors, a situation known as “salary compression.” In some instances, classified staff could receive higher salaries than their supervisors,a situation known as “salary inversion.”
Three factors are causing the classified staff salary changes.
Due to continuing statewide efforts in Civil Service Reform, the Washington State Department of Personnel (DOP) is consolidating job titles and merging multiple titles into a single range. These changes may result in both title change and salary range adjustment for classified staff. See online @ http://washingtonworks.wa.gov/civil/
Another factor in salary changes is implementation of the DOP Salary Survey in which the agency measures the value of state positions against the public labor market and makes salary range adjustments to keep the state salaries competitive.
Also, the State Legislature recently authorized the addition of Step L to the state salary scales for civil service or classified staff – allowing individuals who have been frozen at Step K for a year or more to now advance a step.
According to DeSoer, nearly all of WSU’s Civil Service employees will have one or more of these elements applied to their salaries. About 600 employees will be affected as the result of the Step L movement alone.
“Because of the unintended consequences of these changes on the ranks of AP employees,” President Floyd wrote in his letter, “I am asking Steve DeSoer to build on the work previously done in this area and provide me a systematic approach to AP salary placement and movement for implementation not later than September 1, 2008 – the anticipated date of the next mass salary increase.”
