'Equal' bonuses anything but

Santa Claus will be kinder to some state and school workers than others this holiday season.

While full-time state executive branch workers got a one-time bonus of $415 in their first December paycheck, judicial branch employees got $479 each. Some full-time school workers are getting $450; others, nothing.

And Utah's 104 part-time legislators, the governor and other elected officials and judges didn't get the holiday bonus at all.

The Legislature's intent, says House Budget Chairman Ron Bigelow, was for all state employees to get the same bonus this December. Now it's clear that didn't happen.

The 2004 Legislature, strapped for ongoing monies to give pay raises but flush with a one-time cash surplus, decided last February to give only a 1 percent cost-of-living wage to Utah's 18,000 executive and judicial branch employees.

Lawmakers also gave a 1.5 percent increase in the Weighted Pupil Unit, the state's basic per-student funding formula, to the 40 public school districts. Usually, the WPU translates into a pay raise for teachers, although each district signs pay-raise contracts with their own teachers.

In addition, legislators gave $33 million in one-time cash to go for bonuses in public and higher education, the executive and court branches, said state personnel officials.

The legislators said the bonuses should be given across the board to all full-time workers in their first December pay check, and be pro-rated for less than full-time employees.

"The idea of the bonus was that every full-time employee would get the same," says Bigelow, R-West Valley.

But that's not how it panned out.

Granite District is giving a $324 bonus per full-time employee who was with the district Nov. 15. That's on par with Davis District's $325. Both exempted substitute teachers and seasonal or temporary workers.

But Salt Lake City School District is giving a whopping $450 bonus per FTE contract worker — teachers, administrators, most secretaries and buildings and grounds crews, for example. Hourly, non-contract employees, including most bus drivers and lunch workers, will get an amount equal to 1 percent of their gross salary last year, up to $450.