Final report: KCC workers chose pay raise over job security

TOPEKA – Offered a choice between a pay raise and civil service protection of their jobs, 93 percent of Kansas Corporation Commission employees took the money last year.

That figure was reported Thursday as part of an annual report to commissioners.

Also Thursday, commissioners selected Commissioner Jay Emler, an attorney and former state senator, to serve as chairman through 2016.

Employees packed the hearing room at KCC headquarters as they and the commissioners got updates on various aspects of the agency, which regulates the state’s private-sector utilities, oil and gas drilling, and intrastate trucking.

Danelle Harsin, human resources director, reported that overall employment at the KCC had dropped from 198 at the beginning of last year to 186 now.

The commission last year offered a 7.5 percent pay raise, but only to employees who agreed to give up their civil-service or “classified” employee protections.

Harsin said that of the 97 employees who were eligible, 90 had taken the deal.

Unclassified workers can be disciplined, laid off or fired without being given notice or reason, unless they are protected by a union contract that has a provision for that.

Some union contracts have that, and others don’t, said Rebecca Proctor, executive director of the Kansas Organization of State Employees.

Pay freezes, coupled with increased employee contributions for health care and pensions, have taken their toll and acted as a de facto pay cut, Proctor said.

“They have not had a raise since 2009, but their benefit costs have gone up every year,” Proctor said. “For many employees, it’s hard to turn down a 7.5 percent pay raise.”

Eileen Hawley, a spokeswoman for Gov. Sam Brownback, characterized the switch from classified to unclassified status as a voluntary process for the employees.

“We believe state employees are intelligent and capable of making their own choices,” she said in an e-mail response to Eagle questions.

Sen. Tom Holland, D-Baldwin City, said he thinks the KCC offer was designed to coerce the employees into giving up their civil-service protection, which he said was part of an ongoing effort by Brownback to control and politicize the state’s working staff.

Last year, Holland fought a bill that eliminated competitive merit-test hiring in the Labor Department’s unemployment insurance section and opened the gate for those employees to participate in political campaign activities.

Holland said the civil service was created to insulate employees from the “machine politics” of the past, when each incoming administration would uproot the experienced workers and replace them with political supporters.

“In my mind, I think we’re running potentially afoul of constitutional law” by eliminating civil-service jobs, Holland said. “We need to have people who are experts. … We need to protect the people, I believe, from the politics of their managers and governor.”

This story was originally published January 14, 2016 at 8:24 PM with the headline "Final report: KCC workers chose pay raise over job security."