Dayton signs bill ratifying state employee contracts
Governor Dayton signed a bill today that ratifies the state's contracts with its employees.
The contracts give a two percent across-the-board pay increase to 35,000 state workers. The raise would be retroactive to the beginning of the year.
The state's largest public employee unions have been lobbying the Legislature to ratify the contracts quickly, because there are only a few months remaining before a new contract starts on July first.
Dayton and Democrats in control of the Legislature note that it's the first raise for state workers in three and a half years.
Republican leaders argue the workers shouldn't get a raise when the economy is still slow and many private sector workers aren't getting pay increases.
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