SC state employees may get pay bump, bonus under House budget plan. Here’s how much
South Carolina state employees would get a 3% pay raise and a $1,500 bonus under a budget plan proposed Wednesday by House budget writers.
The move comes as lawmakers have an additional $4.6 billion to spend when putting together the 2022-23 budget.
Some of those additional dollars are being used to increase minimum teacher salaries by $4,000 and keep about $600 million out of state coffers through an income tax cut.
The 3% raise would cost the state an additional $72 million a year, while the $1,500 bonus costs about $45 million.
“The last two years, the state employees have been workhorses,” said state Rep. Bruce Bannister, R-Greenville.
State Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg, a long-time advocate for giving state employees pay raises, hopes for an additional bonus for state workers who earn less than $50,000 a year. That’s about about 75% of the state workforce, as the state still has additional federal money to allocate, including through the American Rescue Plan Act.
“It would be great in my opinion if we looked at that category of state employees and look at giving them a sizeable bonus with some of these federal dollars for the work that they have done,” Cobb-Hunter said.
Ultimately the full House and the Senate will have to approve the budget.
This story was originally published February 23, 2022 at 6:53 PM with the headline "SC state employees may get pay bump, bonus under House budget plan. Here’s how much."
