Arkansas state employee pay plan overhaul boosts salaries for hard-to-fill jobs • Arkansas Advocate

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced a restructure of the state’s pay plan for its employees across all agencies Tuesday.

The overhaul will raise some salaries to labor market rates, clarify the promotion ladders in each agency and consolidate roughly 2,200 job titles into just over 800 without reducing the number of available jobs, according to a Tuesday news release.

State agency chiefs should be able to accommodate the revamped pay schedule within existing budgets, the governor said.

Roughly two-thirds of state agencies’ workforce — 14,539 state employees — will receive pay raises that make their salaries competitive with the private sector, Sanders announced at a press conference.

“I’ve made no secret that I believe that Arkansas’ current state employee pay plan is broken,” Sanders said. “It’s confusing, it doesn’t reward hard work and it’s not recruiting new hires for our most in-demand positions. Frankly, it’s failing the men and women who work in state government, and because of that, it’s failing the people of Arkansas.”

The positions that state agencies have the most trouble filling will receive salary increases with double-digit percentages, Sanders said.

According to the press release:

• Correctional officers’ average entry-level salaries will increase from $37,589 to $50,845, and their average salaries will increase from $50,461 to $59,100.
• Social services employees, such as those who work with foster children, will see their average starting salaries increase from $44,172 to $52,442 and their average salaries increase from $73,318 to $80,930.
• Arkansas State Police officers’ average entry-level salaries will increase from $56,498 to $67,706, and their average salaries will increase from $73,318 to $80,930.

Another field with “chronic shortages” of Arkansas employees is nursing, and average entry-level salaries will increase from $51,032 to $54,661 while average overall salaries will increase from $57,686 to $61,552, the press release states.

Arkansas Legislative Council OKs bonuses for nurses who serve in state facilities

In October, lawmakers approved $5,000 one-time bonuses as recruitment and retention measures for nurses who care for people with profound intellectual disabilities at seven state-run facilities. The cumulative totals for the one-time payments were projected to be $510,000 at the Human Development Centers, $467,000 at the Arkansas State Hospital and $283,000 at the Arkansas Health Center, according to the Arkansas Department of Human Services.

Kay Barnhill, director of the Office of Personnel Management in the state Department of Transformation and Shared Services, said at the time that she expected the upcoming pay plan overhaul across all agencies to increase nurses’ pay.

Dakota Moore, a nurse from De Queen who works for the Arkansas Department of Health, attended Tuesday’s press conference. Sanders said a pay raise for Moore would allow her to quit the extra job she works to make ends meet and instead spend more time with her children.

Sanders also spotlighted two other state employees who would benefit from pay raises: Blake Irvin, a state trooper from Wynne who lost his home in a tornado last year, and Santresa Jackson, a single mother from Conway and a family service worker for the Division of Children and Family Services within DHS.

Irvin was the only one of the three who spoke at the press conference. He said the pay raise would not only help his family’s income but also help Arkansas State Police recruit new officers.

Arkansas officials devised the proposed pay plan with help from McKinsey, a Washington, D.C., consulting firm the state hired in February under a three-year, $5.5 million contract to work on government efficiency.

McKinsey encouraged not only the pay raises, but also the creation of clear career paths for each position within a state agency, Transformation and Shared Services Secretary Leslie Fisken said at Tuesday’s press conference.

Legislative panel endorses contract with McKinsey to improve Arkansas government efficiency

The pay plan would increase the number of pay tables from four to six. The existing four are information systems and technology, state general services, medical and executives. The two new ones would be professionals and law enforcement and safety, Fisken said.

The plan will go into effect in July as part of the fiscal year 2026 state budget if approved by the Legislature, which convenes from January to April.

Sanders will present the full state proposed budget on Nov. 21, and she said Tuesday that it won’t have any “new money” set aside for the fulfillment of the proposed pay plan.

Instead, she said, cabinet secretaries should “pay for the vast majority” of the raises and other changes “through the existing budget that they already have.”

Implementing the pay plan is expected to cost $102 million, with $60 million coming from the state’s general revenue and the remaining $42 million “from other sources,” according to the press release.

“Much of this cost will be absorbed by existing funding, due to salary savings and existing vacancies,” the release states.

The state has a $72 million “performance fund” that agencies can use to fulfill the new pay plan if their own budgets are not enough, Sanders said.