Apples-to-Apples, New Mexico’s Government Employees Already Make More: Gov. Martinez Should Consider Vetoing Wage Hike

(Albuquerque) Prior to the 2014 legislative session, the Legislative Finance Committee called for 1.5 percent pay hikes for all New Mexico government employees. Gov. Martinez proposed more modest pay increases. Rather than seeing pay increases for all state employees, Martinez planned to boost pay for about one-third of public workers. New teachers would have received higher pay.

In a “compromise” plan the likes of which are only found in government, the Legislature-passed- budget includes 3 percent cost-of-living salary increases for state agency workers and teachers.

Judges, district attorneys, state police and motor-transportation officers would receive 8 percent raises while prison guards, juvenile-justice officers, social workers handling child abuse cases and educational assistants in schools would get 6 percent pay increases.

In other words, the Legislature took its own proposed pay hikes and doubled them…or more.

Ironically, these proposed pay hikes come at a time of conflicting evidence over whether New Mexico’s government workers are overpaid or underpaid.

According to a recent report from New Mexico’s Personnel Office, “New Mexico’s average pay for 115 of 151 (government) job classifications trailed the average pay of the nearby states. Some workers’ average pay trailed the average pay in neighboring states by more than 20 percent including plumbers, biologists, engine mechanics, and chemists.”

The Rio Grande Foundation, on the other hand, analyzed data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics and Department of Labor to determine the earnings and compensation differences among employees of similar characteristics, skill sets, and occupations within the public and private sectors.

Using a mathematical tool called regression analysis to isolate relevant factors relating to employee pay including education levels, time of services, and more, the Foundation produced a careful analysis of data on both total compensation and benefits. The study finds that with benefits included, public workers in New Mexico make over 8 percent more in total compensation than a similar worker in the private sector.

Said Rio Grande Foundation president Paul Gessing of the differing approaches to government employee pay, “Gov. Martinez would be entirely justified in vetoing these pay hikes which went far beyond her original budget proposal and which unnecessarily increase the compensation disparity between government and private sector workers in New Mexico.”