A new study of state employee salaries by an outside consultant confirms what state managers and workers have long maintained ? Maryland employees in many jobs make less than their counterparts in the region.
“With few exceptions, the state of Maryland lags behind” other state and city government employees in terms of base salary, said the report by CPS Human Resources Services of Washington, D.C., which was paid $500,000. Other than compensation, Maryland was found to be competitive on other benefits.
The report found that Maryland?s average minimum salary was $43,200, about 5 percent below the market, and the average maximum was $67,381, about 3 percent below the market. But salaries in many categories were much lower than that, and far below salaries in competing jurisdictions.
Correctional officer sergeants, for instance, started at $35,558, 11 percent below the market, and their maximum pay of $56,438 was also 11 percent below the competition.
The starting salary for income maintenance specialist I ? workers who determine eligibility for welfare, medical assistance and food stamps ? was $27,876, 10 percent below competing jurisdictions. The top salary was $43,647, 8 percent below the market.
“It?s very difficult to recruit and keep income maintenance workers,” said Andre Powell, who has done the job for 18 years. “They?ll work for Maryland for a while and then they?ll go to work in the private sector. This leads to a critical shortage of staff when people leave for higher salaries.”
Powell noted that income maintenance workers are supposed to help people “move from welfare to work, and become tax-paying, productive members of society.”
Powell was due to speak at a rally Monday night organized by AFSCME, the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees.
“We are looking at the report and the adequacy of state salaries compared to other states, with an eye toward ensuring that our recruitment and retention efforts are effective,” said Rick Abbruzzese, Gov. Martin O?Malley?s spokesman.
In the governor?s budget for fiscal 2009, state employees are set to receive 2 percent cost-of-living increases, as they have since 2007. In 2006, they got 1.5 percent. In 2003 and 2004, state workers got no raises.
