State employees fall behind in pay, benefits

Has anyone in the Governor's Office noticed that state employees are leaving to go to the county and the city. And why, you say? Because they make more money. It is pathetic that we are so far behind in salaries.

This is not the small community it used to be. Things have changed and the prices of everything have changed with it, except our salaries. The big cost-of-living raise we are getting in July is a joke, my salary is going to go up a whopping $22, that won't even fill up my gas tank, also the 2 percent increase does not even cover the increase in the insurance premiums.

The deductibles, the premiums and the co-payments have all increased for less. The dental insurance is a joke, the vision is contracted with one of the worst optical companies there is. It sometimes takes 5-6 tries to get one pair of glasses right.

Last year I had to have a root canal and a new crown, but the amount that the insurance company would pay would only pay for the root canal, so I had to have a temporary on until the beginning of the following year which was four months.

It is simply time for the employees of the state to get a beneficial cost of living raise and stop jerking us around with these tidbits. It's a slap in the face to all of us. It's about time we were appreciated for what we do. The insurance is slowly but surely taking a dive and that always used to be a calling card for people who wanted to work for the state.

Now, there is very little reward for working for the state. I remember when people used to be proud of working for the state, now when you tell someone that you are a state employee they look at you like they feel sorry for you. The moral of state employees is getting worse and worse and no one cares at all. The governor has made it clear that the employees in his office are worth much more than any of the rest of us working stiffs.

When you have a leader that deliberately puts his own staff above others that have worked for the state longer and harder, it really shows us just what he thinks of all of us. The fact that he insulted us by giving us a 2 percent raise only proves our point. For God sakes tax the casino and give us a raise that will put us in the majority, not the minority.