Senate leaders let NCDOT pay raises stand
State Senate budget writers said Tuesday they will not try to revise a controversial provision in last year’s budget that NCDOT officials used to provide several thousand workers with double-digit pay increases as high as 65 percent.
Instead, the budget writers said they have a “really good gentleman’s agreement” with the North Carolina Department of Transportation to receive notification if the department uses the provision for further increases. The department has already dedicated $55 million for the raises to bring positions up in pay after a study found them below market rates.
“Any further moves, though, in that direction, we have their agreement they would come back and talk with us,” said state Sen. Brent Jackson, a Sampson County Republican.
Nicole Meister, NCDOT’s communication’s director, did not directly confirm the agreement, but said in email messages the department would not move forward with what will likely be increases for Division of Motor Vehicles workers before talking with legislative leaders. That, she said, is the only planned pay action the department had left under the provision.
That agreement likely means no legislative action will happen in the budget to address a provision that gives the NCDOT the flexibility to potentially spend $152 million on pay increases, instead of the roughly $35 million legislative budget writers say they had intended.
The 2018 budget provision allowed NCDOT to use a small percentage of its funding for the market-rate adjustments. But House and Senate budget writers said they intended for NCDOT to use 2 percent of its payroll for those adjustments, while the NCDOT interpreted the provision to mean 2 percent of the two highway funds that largely pay for transportation needs.
NCDOT officials say they were struggling to fill positions due to retirements and a strong economy.
House budget writers twice sought to rein in the provision when they rolled out their budget early this month, but their colleagues in the chamber wouldn’t go along. Rep. John Torbett, a Gaston County Republican who leads the budget committee on transportation spending, sided with NCDOT officials in successfully arguing against changing the provision.
All told, the provision provided pay increases to 7,000 NCDOT employees, with nearly 5,300 of them receiving an increase of 10 percent or more. Those increases came after a market study for many positions, particularly in engineering and operations.
DMV workers were not a part of that study, however. A new study examining their pay is under way, Meister said.
“Once it’s complete, we will share it with leadership at the General Assembly before taking any action,” she said.
This story was originally published May 28, 2019 at 7:44 PM with the headline "Senate leaders let NCDOT pay raises stand."