Workers’ contracts coincide with new budget

AUGUSTA – Coinciding with this weekend’s onset of a new fiscal year, about 10,000 Maine state workers will receive the first benefits of new contracts.

Maine State Employees Association Executive Director Tim Belcher reported this week that four groups of employees – administrative; operations, maintenance and support; professional-technical; and supervisory – had approved the pacts.

Effective July 1, the agreement calls for workers to get a $700 lump-sum payment now and a 2 percent raise in 2008.

Workers will also go up a step on the pay scale.

Contract details include:

. $700 lump-sum payment in July, which equals 2 percent of the average state employee’s annual salary of $35,000.

. 2 percent raise in July 2008.

. Step increase in January 2009.

. Workers with 25 or more years get a 50-cent-per-hour raise starting in September.

. Institutional workers receive a 30-cent-per-hour raise in July 2008.

. Direct care workers get an additional 30 cents per hour in July 2008.

Also taking effect July 1 is a new two-year state General Fund budget worth $6.3 billion.

Service cuts and funding transfers helped to avoid raising taxes on tobacco as the budget Gov. John Baldacci submitted in January proposed.

The budget also calls for a consolidation of Maine’s 152 school administrative systems to 80 in the biggest public school system reorganization since the Sinclair Act of 1957.

Officials pegged initial savings from consolidation at $36.5 million.

In the closing days of the current fiscal year, state officials have been closely watching revenue collections as both the General Fund and Highway Fund struggled to finish in the black.