KOB-TV investigates: Over 400 state workers received raises, 20,000 lost pay

From KOB-TV.com - While 20,000 state employees have lost two percent of their salaries to five furlough days this year, KOB Eyewitness News 4 has learned that temporary raises are being doled out to hundreds of select state employees. State officials say these temporary raises have only been given to employees who are taking on more responsibility as a result of the states hiring freeze or are so valuable that losing them would be disastrous to the state. But critics say the pay increases are loopholes to reward a select few. One source who was wished to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation told KOB certain individuals were receiving 15 percent pay increases during the time when the state was on a salary and hiring freeze.
“We have no money to pay these employees, that’s why we’re on furloughs,” said the SPO employee. Despite the freeze, KOB uncovered over 400 temporary salary increases. The state personnel director, Sandra Perez, says by law the state is allowed to give out several types of raises in times of a salary freeze. Temporary salary increases, or TSI’s, are given to state employees who take on additional duties. Temporary Retention Differentials, or TRD’s, are given to keep employees from leaving their jobs for higher paying positions elsewhere.
A review of over a thousand pages of requests for salary increases turned up hundreds of TSI’s and TRD’s in at least 29 state agencies. At the state’s Public Education Department, around a dozen temporary salary increases were given to employees, including two raises for top administrators who transferred from classified positions into governor-exempt positions. General Manager Stephen Burrell was promoted as PED’s deputy cabinet secretary, increasing his annual $88,670 salary by an additional $6.39 an hour. There were three TSI’s at the Department of Finance and Administration including Deputy Secretary Esther Varela Lopez who saw her base salary of $87,258 increase by about $2,800. Four increases were given out at the Public Regulation Commission, and seven raises were found in the Tax and Revenue Department. The Department of Information and Technology also had seven raises, including the salary for division director Charles Martinez that went from nearly $90,600 this year to $99,000. Read more
Thirty-five temporary raises were given at the Department of Health, while seventeen raises were given to employees at New Mexico’s Health and Human Services Department.
The Department of Transportation had the most temporary salary increases where more than 170 raises were given mostly to road workers.

KOB-TV investigates: Over 400 state workers received raises, 20,000 lost pay