Nearly 5,300 Washington state government and community college employees, including those at Columbia Basin College, won’t be getting a 3% pay raise in July when most other state workers will.

That’s because those members of the Washington Public Employees Association did not ratify a new two-year contract until April 3, long past a statutory deadline and too tardy to be cribbed into the next state budget.

“It came very, very late in the process and it would have been quite difficult to respond to,” said Sen. Derek Stanford, D-Bothell, one of the Democratic lawmakers who pieced together the final budget agreement. “We need these groups to get their work done by the deadline.”

Amanda Hacker, the association president, said not getting the cost-of-living adjustment this year means the workers will “fall even further behind not just the private sector, but other state employees.”

“We are devastated. This amounts to punishing our members for asserting their rights in the bargaining process,” she said. “We’re looking at all our options to mitigate the immediate harm to our members.”

Meanwhile, the budget does fund the first-ever collective bargaining agreements with legislative employees in the state House and Senate. They contain the pay hikes provided in agreements with other state worker unions.

It wasn’t a certainty, however. Two of the four affected employee units did not approve their contracts until December. Lawmakers had the entire session to write them into the final deal.

By law, public sector unions in Washington must approve a new contract by Oct. 1 to be considered by a governor for funding in the ensuing two-year budget.

The spending plan approved by the Legislature on April 27 funds multiple contracts containing general pay hikes of 3% on July 1, 2025 and 2% a year later. These agreements also raise the starting wage for state workers to $18 an hour.

Members of the Washington Public Employees Association not receiving those increases work at 14 community colleges and in nine state agencies. Among them are the Department of Natural Resources, Department of Revenue, the Liquor and Cannabis Board and Department of Agriculture. 

Their members overwhelmingly voted down a tentative agreement on Sept. 30 with the pay hikes. Association negotiators derided the proposal as a pay cut, saying it would not allow worker salaries to keep pace with rising costs. They initially sought a 30% hike.

Union leaders told employees then that rejecting the accord would put them in “uncharted territory.”

Hacker said they hoped to keep bargaining. But the Office of Financial Management, which represents the state, wouldn’t, she said. The union sued to try to force a resumption of talks. Negotiations restarted in December.

The two sides reached a tentative agreement in March and union members ratified it April 3. It has 3% and 2% increases, the same as the other contracts. 

The estimated cost was $55.8 million for the 2025-27 biennium, of which $18.1 million would come from the state general fund. The Office of Financial Management provided the figures to lawmakers in March.

Stanford said he would expect the state agency and union to request money next year to provide wage hikes to the affected employees.

Hacker said there may be other avenues to secure funding for the pay increases. If not, the union will seek to begin talks immediately on a contract to submit to lawmakers in 2026.

“We’re no way near done. Our members are mad. The budget isn’t signed,” Hacker said. 

Any agreement would need to be approved by the union by Oct. 1.

In the meantime, the agreements with legislative staff of the Republican and Democratic caucuses in the House and Senate will provide the same wage hikes offered to other state employee unions — 5% pay hikes spread over two fiscal years.

Legislative assistants in the GOP caucuses unanimously approved contract language by the Oct. 1 deadline. Democratic staff did not, overwhelmingly rejecting proposed contracts with their employers, which are the chief clerk of the House and secretary of the Senate.

Three months later, in late December, legislative assistants, policy analysts and communications staff in the House Democratic Caucus and legislative assistants in the Senate Democratic Caucus ratified their respective agreements. 

A 2022 law cleared the way for partisan legislative staff to unionize and negotiate terms and conditions for the workplace. 

Employees of the Democratic and Republican caucuses in each chamber had to be in separate units unless a majority of each caucus voted to be in the same unit. All four units negotiated collectively on economic issues, like wages and benefits, and separately on workplace-related issues.

This story is republished from the Washington State Standard, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news outlet that provides original reporting, analysis and commentary on Washington state government and politics.