Following up on Dick’s posts yesterday and today on employee compensation, here is a chart showing annual increases in average state employee pay for the years 1999 through 2009. I have excluded higher education because tuition increases have provided extra pay increases for faculty in recent years. The underlying data come from the fiscal.wa.gov web site.

In addition to across the board cost of living increases, which were granted in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009, average pay has gone up because of step increases, job reclassifications, and increases deemed necessary to enhance recruitment or retention.

For fiscal year 2008, the average state salary increased by 8.9 percent. The across the board COLA for that year was 3.2 percent.