Pay, health care and retirement benefits are SEANC's core legislative objectives. SEANC has worked diligently to ensure state employee pay does not fall further and further behind market rate. In 2006 and 2007, SEANC secured the largest back-to-back pay raises in two decades. Then in 2014, SEANC was able to secure the largest overall compensation increase since 2008. The most recent pay raises for state employees includes the following:

The people of North Carolina deserve the best. The state's more than 9 million citizens rely on state employees to make sure criminals are kept off our streets; to keep watch over the vulnerable population of those mentally unable to care for themselves; to make sure nursing homes and hospitals are inspected. We need state employees to make sure that our highly-traveled roads provide safe passage to work, family or church.

And yet, the state is facing short- and long-term problems fulfilling its obligation to efficiently provide the highest quality public services. Turnover, which cost the state $295.5 million in Fiscal Year 2012-13, is expensive, inefficient and unwise.

The recent economic downturn and the coming aging of the Baby Boomer population means that the state will need to provide more services for even more North Carolinians. We need quality public services now more than ever. And yet, noncompetitive salaries and inadequate health and retirement benefits all conspire to make it more difficult to attract and retain the experienced, quality employees North Carolina needs to provide the public services that help make our state a great place to live and raise our families.

In 2009 SEANC commissioned a report to investigate North Carolina state employee compensation. Read the entire report to see why North Carolina’s public services are at risk and what can be done to correct turnover and improve quality.