Gov. Bill Ritter Monday vetoed a bill that would have given more regular pay increases to state employees who met basic performance benchmarks, delivering another blow to his relationship with labor unions.
In his veto message — one of three signed Monday — Ritter lamented the current pay-for-performance system of increases that he said are rarely funded and unevenly distributed among state workers. But he criticized House Bill 1409 for putting default pay hikes before the governor’s office and legislators for approval each year.
“If this economic downturn has taught us anything, it is that budgetary flexibility is necessary in order to meet the challenges we face in difficult economic times,” Ritter wrote. “It is unwise to put another portion of the state budget on automatic pilot.”
Labor groups rejoiced at Ritter’s ascension to the governor’s office in 2007, matched by Democratic majorities in the state House and Senate for the first time in decades.
Ritter’s 2007 executive order allowing 31,000 state workers to unionize through somewhat limited “employee partnerships” ruffled feathers of business interests and Republican critics but provided an early signal that he was friendly to labor.
The bitter backlash, public protests and vitriolic legislative tirades that followed Ritter’s 2009 veto of two union bills — one to give grocery workers a leg up in contract negotiations, another to promote unionization among local safety agencies — showed how much that relationship had soured.
Monday’s veto proved even the 2007 executive order was less a boon than it was made out to be, said Terry Campbell, head of governmental affairs for the Association of Colorado State Patrol Professionals.
The partnerships were supposed to provide a conduit to the highest offices for the average worker’s concerns.
“We thought it had some promise, and it just didn’t work out,” Campbell said. “There was no direction and no real ability to . . . agree on something to solve a pretty major problem within the system.”
Ritter said he has directed the state Department of Personnel and Administration to study pay inequities and develop a plan to resolve the problem, which he’ll submit to the legislature before leaving office in January, he said.
State employees have waited for years — and for two different governors — to fix the unfair and at times arbitrary dispensation of pay increases, said Bob Gibson, executive director of the state employees’ union Colorado WINS.
The newest state workers tend to linger for years at the bottom rungs of the pay range for their respective positions, for example.
HB 1409 would have qualified state employees with satisfactory performance reviews for 12 years of stepped pay increases, but pay hikes still would have needed lawmaker approval and been contingent on the state’s economic welfare.
“As you know, this is an outgoing governor. We were hoping to actually get this figured out,” Gibson said. “We’ve gone through two administrations . . . conducting studies. Now is the time for action.”
Also killed Monday was House Bill 1281, which would have taken authority from the Colorado Public Utilities to regulate Internet-based phone service called Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP.
Ritter noted that preemptively barring the state from regulating VoIP is “unwise” because the Federal Communications Commission is still determining whether the service requires oversight. The state PUC does not currently regulate VoIP.
“This veto does not diminish the authority of the PUC to make this change or the ability of Qwest to seek such a change,” Ritter said in a statement.
Ritter also vetoed House Bill 1287, which would have required most public employees driving the state’s 1,058 cars to pay for miles they drive to and from work.
Backers estimated the measure could have saved between a few hundred thousand dollars and $3 million. Emergency vehicles were exempt under the legislation.
“A large number of state employees who are required to use a state-owned vehicle as an essential tool for performing their jobs would be financially penalized,” Ritter wrote.
Staff writer Andy Vuong contributed to this report.
Jessica Fender: 303-954-1244 or jfender@denverpost.com
