Data challenges

Just trying to get an accurate count of how many state employees received raises or promotions last year is a frustrating exercise.

The state processed 13,386 freeze exception requests last year, but not all were for raises, promotions or new hires. The state uses nearly three dozen categories and codes to classify employment actions. Several of those categories can be used to document job changes that may or may not include raises or promotions, according to officials with the Office of Management and Enterprise Services, the agency tasked with gathering such data.

Focusing on the categories that are clearly raises and promotions, OMES officials produced reports that indicated at least 4,905 raises were given to state employees last year and another 1,156 were given promotions. Combined, they would constitute 18 percent of the state's 34,173 state employees, not counting higher education.

However, those numbers greatly understate the true number of raises and promotions, according to other employee data The Oklahoman received directly from state agencies and cabinet secretaries through Open Records requests.

For example, the Office of Management and Enterprise Services reported that at least 10 Oklahoma Turnpike Authority employees received raises or promotions last year, but the Turnpike Authority provided a list of 19 employees who had received them.

And OMES reported at least 50 Veterans Affairs employees had received raises or promotions, but Veterans Affairs officials provided a list of 154, with nearly 80 percent of them receiving pay increases of 10 percent or more.

Listed separately by Veterans Affairs officials were the 159 patient care assistants who received $250 attendance bonuses, since bonuses don't increase base salaries.

Also not included was retired Maj. Gen. Rita Aragon, whose pay was raised from $65,000 to $100,000 when she changed jobs from the governor's secretary of veterans affairs to a new job as administrative assistant to the director of Veterans Affairs. She didn't show up on the list receiving raises and promotions because she previously had been paid through the governor's office, officials said.

Getting accurate data about state employees' raises and promotions is difficult, acknowledged Finance Secretary Preston Doerflinger.

"I think it's a hodgepodge," Doerflinger said. "We know that the state's employee compensation and classification system ... is somewhat of a mess."

Doerflinger said he and the governor have tried to initiate changes and he hopes the system can be simplified and revamped before the governor leaves office.

"I would be completely disingenuous if I tried to suggest to you that we had a handle on it from a global perspective," he said.

The governor agreed that change is needed.

"The state’s compensation and classification system is outdated, overly complex and needs reform, which I proposed in 2014 and would still like the Legislature to support,” she said.