Today is the first day that Wisconsin’s Budget Repair Bill goes into effect. After all the controversy, protesting, and court challenges, the bill will be stalled no longer. It’s a dreaded day for me and many other state employees, who will begin paying more into our pensions and health care—not to mention the loss of collective bargaining to protect unionized employees from future changes.
On principle, I don’t mind paying more into my pension and health care. I acknowledge that this is a time for belt-tightening, and I think for many state workers, the bill’s fiscal changes are acceptable.
When protests broke out over the bill, Governor Walker’s response was to portray us as tight-fisted, fighting tooth and nail to hang onto our cushy benefits. But in reality, the protests were much more about the union-busting than about the fiscal stuff.
That said, I’m one of the state workers who can’t quite afford the bill’s fiscal changes.
This is because I’m a Limited-Term Employee, or LTE. We LTEs have a unique situation. Although our title implies that we’re here for a short time, at the Department of Natural Resources we’re often kept on for years or even decades, as long as we do good work and don’t mind low pay.
In some ways we’re second-class citizens, the equivalent of graduate students, often long on responsibilities but short on credit. Many of our supervisors make us feel valued, but some don’t. And there’s always the subtle rankling of knowing that your full-time (FTE) colleagues make twice as much as you for the same type of work.
Ron and I, and the many other LTEs we know, are paid in the ballpark of $14 to $19 per hour. We work for a year or so before being eligible for benefits, which are excellent when we do finally get them. We’re unable to get pay raises.
(I did once hear a tale of one LTE who said to another, “I’ve gotten a raise every year. Every year, I just work one half hour less per week!” It’s hard to know whether this tale was a DNR urban legend, though—it’s definitely not the norm.)
We also get no vacation or overtime pay, and we can claim no more than 40 hours per week. As a result of all these restrictions, last year I brought home less than $20,000.
All of this isn’t meant as a complaint. I chose this job—in fact, I recently turned down a well-paying job in order to stay in my current job for the time being.
This job is exactly what I’ve wanted to be doing, over the past two years since graduate school. It’s given me the experience I needed in my chosen field of stream ecology. On resumes and job applications, I can now say I’ve not only got a master’s degree but two years’ experience.
The job is also a foot in the door with the DNR; I’ve made many contacts and formed a reputation within the agency. So, although the pay is low, so far it has been worth it.
But still, the amount I brought home last year was just enough to cover my living expenses and some savings. It was the same for Ron.
When Walker first introduced the Budget Repair Bill, one of the proposals in the bill was to remove health care entirely for LTEs. We had a meeting at the DNR in which my bureau director fearlessly fielded tension-filled questions about what the bill would mean. There were many questions about LTEs’ health benefits, and the poor bureau director confirmed that our benefits were on the chopping block.
When I heard that, I turned to another LTE and whispered, “If I lose my benefits, I’m outta here.” She nodded angrily.
At our low salaries, we constantly walk the tightrope between being in the red and in the black. If we had to pay for our own health care out of pocket, it would tip most of us over the edge.
But we LTEs weren’t the only ones afraid of losing our benefits. Our Full Time (FTE) colleagues were afraid to lose us if this change went through. Through speeches at that meeting, through emails, and through other advocacy, they spoke up for us: “We can’t afford to lose our LTEs. They’re what makes this agency run.”
In some ways, hearing this affirmation repeated, I felt more valued than I ever had before at the DNR. And to his credit, Walker backed down on this one. Our benefits remained intact.
After all that, I felt too tired and beaten down to speak up about my pay. I didn’t feel like saying, “Thank you for saving my benefits, but it’s not enough.”
Right now, $34 is taken out of my paycheck per month for health care. That amount will double now that the bill is law. Losing $34 a month might not be a big deal to someone who brings home $3000 or more a month, but to someone who brings home less than $1800, it’s a bigger deal, a much bigger percentage of what I was previously saving.
This is only one of many reasons I’ll be leaving the DNR soon—or if not leaving, drastically reducing my hours. I can’t afford to stay in this job forever. Especially if I want kids, I need to find a job where I can save money.
Those who stay in LTE positions tend to be people whose spouses have stable, well-paying positions, but Ron and I are both LTEs right now. It isn’t sustainable.
During the Budget Repair Bill protests, Ron and I talked to our conservative friends Scott and Carol about our situation. Although we were on opposing sides of the protests, they listened sympathetically to our plight, which we greatly appreciated.
Scott pointed out that really, the underlying issue is much deeper than whether LTEs can afford to pay our health care and pensions. He asked: Why does the DNR rely so heavily on LTEs? Why do they keep us on so long, if we’re meant to be limited-term?
Ron and I agreed—this is a deeper issue, and we’re just collateral damage. The real problem relates to a hiring freeze that’s been in place for years, creating a dependence on LTEs because Full Time Employees can’t be hired. And it relates to the constant struggle for resources in a shackled agency: it’s cheaper to hire LTEs than FTEs. Over the years, the state has been struggling financially and/or just hasn’t prioritized this agency.
Although the recent union-busting was unacceptable, the actual budget repairing parts of Walker’s bill probably do make sense when applied to full-time employees. If these fiscal measures don’t make sense for people in my position, perhaps that just means my position isn’t sustainable anyway. Maybe losing good workers like me will force the state to find more sustainable ways to run its agencies. I certainly hope so.
I am saddened to read your blog today Katie. Unfortunately, given the behavior of conservative legislatures of late, especially in Wisconsin and Florida, I think it more likely that they will not care about losing excellent workers like you, because they don’t care about the environment (or you). Spending money of the DNR does not raise short-term corporate profits, which together with further enrichment of the wealthy, is just about all they really do care about.
Jeez, I hope I’m wrong.