KOSE Executive Director Jane Carter Responds to Legislative Leadership’s Threat to Not Fund State Employee Market Adjustments
 
“I am disappointed that our state’s legislative leadership described the funding of market adjustments for state employees as a ‘pay increase’ to a group of business interests last Friday. I am equally troubled that these same leaders declared it ‘unlikely’ for state employees to receive the market adjustments to their wages, which are long overdue.

As any state employee can tell you, the funding of market adjustments is not pay increase, but a pay stabilization for the 6,000 Kansas state employees that are currently paid under the market rate. As one legislator put it, these are not pay raises but reparations for years of underpayment. According to the latest market survey for this January there are over seventy job classifications below the market rate by double digits and five classifications are well underfunded by 30 percent or more!

The Legislature made a promise to the state employees of Kansas; to respect the work they do and to reward it with descent pay that workers of the same classifications receive in nearby states. If this Legislature reneges on its promise to our state employees, then it has lost all its credibility with our state’s hardworking employees.”

###

The Kansas Public Employees Relations Board (PERB) ruled in favor of KOSE and that CSI's and CCII's at all correctional facilities are now classified as KOSE covered employees.

PERB Orders:

Until such time, if ever, as the bargaining unit in question in the instant matter is clarified or amended, PERB's Arpil 29, 2007 Order regarding the composition of the unit is definitive and biding on the parties. That Order provides that CSI and CSII positions are included in the bargaining unit and KDOC cannot simply disregard the Order and deny application of the benefits and protections afforded by the parties' MOA to unit members.

This a huge win for statewide Corrections employees and for all KOSE members! Please contact the KOSE office immediately if you are denied coverage, shift differential, pay, back pay, or benefits of the KOSE MOA.

Go to the KOSE Resources Tab to view the full Order. 

State Employees Respond to the Safekeeping of KNI and PSH for Future Generations: Governor Rejects Facilities Closure Report

State employees and KOSE members applaud Governor Mark Parkinson for making the right decision to save the Kansas Neurological Institute (KNI) soon after its 50th anniversary. The Governor also rejected the Facilities Closure report to downsize Parsons State Hospital as well. This will preserve the homes of more than 150 residents and protect the jobs of more than 500 workers. State employees and members of KOSE made hundreds of phone calls to the Statehouse and the Governor’s Office in support of KNI and PSH and the vital service they provide not only to the mental health and special needs communities of Kansas, but to the state economy as well.

According to a study commissioned last September by the Topeka Chamber of Commerce, KNI not only provides 500 jobs at the hospital itself but supports more than 1300 jobs in the area. The study also found that KNI generates $8,159,976 in tax revenue for the State of Kansas and City of Topeka.   

Today the communities of Kansas can give a sigh of relief in knowing that the residents of KNI and PSH will continue receiving their treatment, workers will continue providing care, and the Kansas economy won’t suffer any further hardship during these tough economic times.

This decision is a testament to all the hard work state employees and KOSE members accomplished by contacting their legislators and the governor on behalf KNI and PSH in the past few months. We dodged a bullet for now, but the decision does leave the possibility for future closures. Shutting the doors of these and other state institutions is unacceptable. We will continue fighting on behalf of our vital institutions.

###