Missouri House Passes Bill to Increase State Worker Pay

(MISSOURINET) – Missouri’s 55-thousand state workers are another step closer to getting a pay increase. The Missouri House has passed the governor’s request to give them an 8.7-percent pay increase and a two-dollar-per-hour bump in pay for group care employees working nights and weekends. The plan comes as the state grapples with about seven-thousand open positions. St. Louis State Representative Peter Merideth, a Democrat, supports the pay increase proposal but says Missouri will still fall behind private industries.

House Budget Committee Chairman Cody Smith says the state has to make tradeoffs and says we cannot “spend our way out of all of society’s problems.” The legislation moves to the Missouri Senate.