Legislative committee hears FY26 proposal for 1.25% pay increase for South Dakota state employees; advocates call it inadequate

Darren Seeley, commissioner of the Bureau of Human Resources and Administration, told a legislative committee in Pierre that Gov. Roden’s FY26 budget recommends a 1.25% across‑the‑board salary increase and a matching 1.25% movement of pay grades for state employees under the governor’s authority.

The proposal is intended to hold workers’ compa ratios — an employee’s pay divided by the midpoint of their pay grade — roughly steady between FY25 and FY26, Seeley said, because matching the raise and the pay‑grade movement would “essentially” leave compa ratios unchanged unless an employee receives a promotion or other raise.

The issue matters to workers and lawmakers because state employees have recently received several targeted and across‑the‑board increases. Seeley described a series of compensatory measures over the past four years: decompression pay funded by benefit changes, two years of targeted increases aimed at pay groups farthest from market rates, and three consecutive annual across‑the‑board raises of…