NASHVILLE — The head of a state employees’ group today called it a “slap in the face” for Republican Gov. Bill Haslam to have hiked the minimum pay of state commissioners by 11 percent to $150,000 a year.
“We are shocked to hear this,” Tennessee State Employees Association President Phil Morson said in a statement.
Morson said the “remainder of the state employee workforce has gone over 3 years with no salary increase, but the governor gives his cabinet huge raises as they walk in the door.”
“This is unfair. It is a slap in the face to the everyday state worker who has the same right as those at the top to be valued for their hard work and competence.”
The Associated Press reported Wednesday that Haslam quietly increased the minimum pay for commissioners.
Morson said he hopes Haslam and lawmakers “will take swift action to address this painful inequity.”
Haslam has proposed a 1.6 percent raise for state employees.
Haslam spokesman David Smith said “it is the governor's philosophy that we should have a leaner state government but we should pay state employees better.”
“Each department is undergoing a top-to-bottom review with the goal of efficiency in providing the core services government is responsible for," Smith said. "The governor believes that each of those commissioners will end up saving the state a whole lot more money than the cost of their salary.”
Typical Republican. Why is it that they get 11% but yet teachers only got 1.6%? The rich looking out for the rich while everyone else suffers. Make him pay, boycott Pilot and vote him out of office.
Well, TN claims itself as an ultra conservative state. They were so angry about that black man being in the WHITE house that, like many ultra conservative, they didn't realize they were shooting themselves in the foot.
With Obama and Governor Haslam holding the Checkbook and spending left and right, both the USA and the State of Tennessee will feel the effects as prices increase. Economic growth is nothing more than a bad case of Global Colding under both the Obama Administration and the Haslam Administration. Both Obama and Haslam will continue to do nothing for the working people. Hide and watch as they both stumble during Musicial Chairs and fail at Show n Tell!
GlacierClipper has it figured out! It is all a big game.
Hey...eyesWIDEopen. Open your eyes! Informed Tennesseans are not "angry that a 'blackman' is in the White House"...they are angry that a Socialist is in the White House!!!
Nice Haslam, another great victory for the rich! My fellow Tennesseans get ready, Haslam is in it for big business. Forget the citizenry. I am still mad over him trying to make it so amazon wont collect sales tax in TN. Instead he says the citizens already are required to report internet transactions, yeah right. We built up the Enterprise South area, widened the interstate, added other infrastructure (electricity water) and now no taxes from them. That was a slap in the face to all small business owners in the area that already have trouble competing with internet sales. Way to support small business and Tennessee.
As Republicans scramble to rework the plan to overhaul the state’s tax code, critics say the latest version leaves a $220 million hole in the budget — creating more problems than it would solve. Way to solve the problem!
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