Governor Opposed Pay Raise to State Employees – Except for Exempts.

About this time last year, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham quietly gave large pay raises to her staff while cutting state and school employee raises. And recently, her Environment Secretary Gave Two More Exempt Employees Huge Pay Raises.

Back in January, Lujan Grisham spokeswoman Nora Meyers Sackett told reporters from the Albuquerque Journal, and the Santa Fe New Mexican, that the administration “is focused on preserving and enhancing key investments in programs that make a difference for New Mexicans,” and therefore did not provide for a pay raise for school and state employees in her budget proposal.

Besides insulting thousands of public employees by suggesting their work is not key in making a difference for New Mexicans, Meyers Sackett forgot to mention the Governor had already given her personal staff big pay raises.

And adding to the hypocrisy, those raises were given out in a classic “do as I say, not as I do” moment.

Here is a little History

Last spring, a little over a month after issuing her first emergency order regarding COVID-19, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham announced at a weekly press conference the state would need to make reductions in spending because of the economic impact of the coronavirus and the faltering oil prices on state revenue.

She also issued a hiring freeze for state government and, according to a report in the Albuquerque Journal, “suggested the hiring freeze would be one of several cost-cutting moves to be implemented, though she did not provide additional details.”

Besides neglecting to provide details about the pending cuts, the governor failed to mention she was giving several of her highly paid staff generous (five-figure) pay raises for the second time in under eighteen months in office.

The raises running between $7,400 to $18,000 were given to her Roundhouse staff even as she and legislators were planning to take back the 4% raise promised teachers and state employees just a few weeks earlier.

Several thousand front-line state, school, and hospital employees paid from state and federal funds make under $30,000/year.

In the Lujan Grisham Administration, those already making the most, get even more.

Things haven’t changed – The Exempts are still reaping the big pay raises, while the rest of the state and school employees got a 1.5% stingily granted pay raise by the Legislature, and reluctantly signed by the Governor.

As reported yesterday by Daniel Chacón in the Santa Fe New Mexican, Justin Garoutte, an assistant to Environment Department Secretary James Kenney, was given a “58 percent raise amounts to about $32,000 more a year, or nearly $87,000 on a 40-hour-a-week schedule.”

But Garoutte’s boss didn’t stop there – according to Chacón’s reporting Kenney also gave Maddy Hayden, his communications director, “a pay increase at the same time Garoutte did, according to documents obtained under a public records request. Her pay increased from $35 an hour to $41.82, a nearly 20 percent hike.”

Back to the Governor

While Michelle Lujan Grisham courted the labor community, she inferred she would be an agent of change for working people.

To be sure this was music to the ears of unions representing the state’s public employees – who had experienced eight years of the Martinez administration never negotiating and signing a fair collective bargaining agreement with fair cost of living wages.

But promises or perceptions are one thing and political reality is another.

It took more than two years, half-way through her term of office, before Lujan Grisham’s administration penned a collective bargaining agreement.

But its an agreement that still has no fair pay raise attached to it – although word is the unions are a bit pissed off, and are pressing the Governor for a wage re-opener.

But at least one former labor leader has been taken care of by the Governor – Her Labor Policy Advisor.

Diego Arencon was a firefighter in Albuquerque.

He headed the city’s firefighters union.

Arencon was expected to be a friend of working people due to his many years lobbying on behalf of not only firefighters, but also for a level playing field for all employees.

Many union leaders figured the governor had appointed one of their own to a high position in the state government as her labor advisor.

However, it seems the labor policy advisor’s journey to the governor’s office took a turn down a self-serving path.

Arencon, a long time favorite of the governor, got his salary boosted from $90,000/year to $125,000/year – just a few months after taking the job as a liaison with the labor community.

(For reference, Arencon’s first pay raise of $35,000 was higher than many school and state employees are paid in an entire year.)

Then last spring, less than a year after his first pay raise, and while the working people in New Mexico government were essentially told they would have to suck it up and wait to get even a modest pay raise, Arencon was given another $10,000 raise.

The two raises brought his salary from $90,000/year to $135,000/year, an increase in pay of $45,000, in under two years.

Others in the governor’s office also received five-figure pay raises while everyone else was told to hold the line. Here is a chart of some of the favored:

Check Here Over the Next Few Weeks for More Related to New Mexico Public Employee Pay Raises – Maybe The Governor’s Labor Advisor Will Ask for a Fair Boost for All Public Employees – Not Just His Fellow ‘Exempts.’