Projo Politics Blog

As the new fiscal year begins July 1, state employees of all stripes will get raises and will also start paying more for their health insurance.

Every union contract the administration has settled calls for a 3-percent pay increase this July 1, said Governor Carcieri’s spokesman, Jeffrey Neal. (Two contracts remain unsettled: with the 1,500-employee union representing correctional officers at the state prison, and with the State Employee Physician Association, a union Neal estimated has 40 to 50 members.)

So-called “unclassified” — that is, nonunion — employees will also get 3-percent raises, Neal said. “It has been the practice of the Carcieri administration to grant the same pay increase to the nonunion workforce,” he said.

State employees contribute to the cost of their health insurance using two formulas. About 7,500 pay a percentage of their pay; about 3,700 pay a percentage of the premium cost. So do the 2,900 nonunion state employees, a group that includes 290 people on the legislative payroll — among them legislative support staff and employees of the auditor general’s office — as well as heads of state departments and agencies, and other management and at-will employees.

On July 1, the worker’s share of the premium cost will rise. For union workers, this was spelled out in the contract; for nonunion workers, a notice went out to each agency’s human resources department three weeks ago, and the agencies are in the process of notifying affected employees.

Workers who earn more than $75,000 a year will now pay 15 percent of their premium cost, up from 11 percent. Factoring in the increase in the price of the plan, that means each worker will pay $871 a year for individual health, dental and vision coverage, and $2,435 a year for family coverage. Because the premium also increased, that’s an increase of $741 in what an employee in this income bracket will pay for a family plan this year.

Workers who earn less than $75,000 a year will go from paying 9 percent of their premium to 12 percent. The state also has a separate category for workers making less than $35,000, for family plans only. Those workers currently pay 6 percent, and will pay 8 percent — or $1,299 a year — starting July 1.

Across all categories of state employees, roughly one-fourth have individual plans and three-fourths have family plans, said Susan Rodriguez, deputy state personnel administrator for benefits.

--By Elizabeth Gudrais, Steve Peoples, Scott MacKay and Michael P. McKinney
Journal Staff Writers

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