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Governor Boosts Salaries for Several Cabinet Positions

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Since taking office in January, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has raised the salaries for several cabinet level positions. In total, those raises add up to nearly $100,000 over the course of a year. The boost in salaries comes even as the state continues to recover financially.

The biggest pay hike went for the position of director of Department of Licensing, the agency that handles driver’s licenses and license plates, among other duties. The department’s new director, Pat Kohler, earns $141,000 a year—a 17 percent increase over her predecessor.

David Postman, a spokesman for the governor, says it was a matter of parity with other cabinet officials.

“In the case of the Licensing, it just seemed to be off compared to other agencies of its size and responsibility. And so when the change was made there, it seemed like a time to readjust that salary,” Postman said.

The second biggest salary adjustment went to the new head of Washington’s Health Care Authority, Dorothy Frost Teeter. That position got a 15-percent raise to the top of the allowed salary range: nearly $152,000.

Postman says that’s because the agency has a major role to play in implementing the federal Affordable Care Act here in Washington.

“It’s a priority of the governor’s to do it and do it well,” he said. “It’s important for the economy, It’s important for the health of the people of Washington state. It’s a bigger job than it was prior to this year.”

Inslee has a 25 member executive cabinet, from the Department of Agriculture to Veterans Affairs. As of this month, 12 of those positions have received no adjustment. Twelve got salary increases, mostly in the 2- to 8-percent range.

And the salary for one position, Puget Sound Partnership, actually went down.

“It sounds like they went through a fair, deliberative process,” said Greg Devereux, who heads the Washington Federation of State Employees.

Devereux says the governor should take the same approach when the time comes to negotiate new contracts with state workers. 

“We would hope that just as cabinet member’s salaries have been adjusted to meet market demands that the same thing would apply to state worker salary survey issues,” he said.

During the Great Recession, cost of living increases were frozen for state employees. That was followed by mandatory furloughs. Then came a 3-percent pay cut that hit everyone, including cabinet officers. That has since been restored.

In the current state employee contracts, the union says most of its members will get a raise in the 1 to 3 percent range.

Since January 2004, Austin Jenkins has been the Olympia-based political reporter for the Northwest News Network. In that position, Austin covers Northwest politics and public policy as well as the Washington State legislature. You can also see Austin on television as host of TVW's (the C–SPAN of Washington State) Emmy-nominated public affairs program "Inside Olympia." Prior to joining the Northwest News Network, Austin worked as a television reporter in Seattle, Portland and Boise. Austin is a graduate of Garfield High School in Seattle and Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut. Austin’s reporting has been recognized with awards from the Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors, Public Radio News Directors Incorporated and the Society of Professional Journalists.