Thousands of state government and community college employees in Washington have overwhelmingly ratified a new one-year contract that would secure raises they lost out on in July.

Nearly 5,300 members of the Washington Public Employees Association didn’t get a 3% pay hike other state workers received July 1 because they failed to approve their two-year deal in time for lawmakers to account for it in the state budget.

For the past three weeks, these state government and community college employees voted on separate tentative agreements. Both were approved by more than 90% of those who participated, the union announced Monday.

“We’re glad to have ratification done and this round of negotiations behind us,” association president Amanda Hacker said in an email. 

The next step is convincing state lawmakers and Gov. Bob Ferguson to fund the agreements in the 2026 supplemental budget they will craft next legislative session.

“While this latest agreement does not address the state’s ongoing failure to pay employees a fair wage, it will bring our members back up to parity with other state workers,” Hacker said. “We look forward to the legislature doing the right thing this time and funding all state employee contracts.”

A spokesman for the Office of Financial Management said the tentative agreements and associated costs will be reviewed by the governor’s budget director, K.D. Chapman-See, to determine whether they’re financially feasible.

“We’re happy that the efforts the parties heartily engaged in over the past eighteen months to negotiate agreements have resulted in ratified contracts,” said OFM spokesman Hayden Mackley.

Those affected work at 14 community colleges, including Columbia Basin College, 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.

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

The spending plan Ferguson signed in May funds multiple public employee union contracts with pay hikes of 3% on July 1 and 2% next July. These agreements contain other salary-related changes, including raising the starting wage for state workers to $18 an hour.

But last fall, Washington Public Employee Association members voted down their tentative agreement in pursuit of larger wage hikes. They didn’t get them, eventually ratifying an accord on April 3 with pay provisions mirroring those they’d rejected earlier. 

The legislative session ended three weeks later.

This time around, if the two contracts ratified Monday are funded, they will take effect at the start of the next fiscal year on July 1, 2026, and cover the second year of the biennium.

Most details in the agreements are the same. The primary difference concerns who is eligible to receive back pay.

State government employees would get the 3% bump paid retroactively and a 2% increase on July 1, 2026. Workers who depart before next July will receive retroactive compensation for the hours worked in this fiscal year.

Under the deal with community college employees, those working on July 1, 2026, would receive retroactive pay. Anyone who is laid off, loses their job due to a disability, or retires would also be eligible for the back pay. But those who leave on their own before the start of the contract would not be eligible for any back pay.

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.