Much of the 2025-2027 Compensation Plan remains unaddressed by the Joint Committee on Employment Relations
MADISON, WI – American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 1 is holding a rally at the Wisconsin State Capitol Building, on the State Street side, on December 11, 2025 starting at 5 PM. The rally calls for the Joint Committee on Employment Relations (JCOER) to meet and approve the proposed 2025-2027 Compensation Plan. Since September 3, 2025, JCOER has left the Compensation Plan unaddressed. Meanwhile, state workers continue to suffer the effects of the cost of living crisis, as well as the difficulty of managing a workload made worse by uncompetitive wages. Wages that are uncompetitive cause high vacancy and turnover rates, leading to inconsistent staffing, which results in a lower quality of service than the public deserves.
Per information available from the Division of Personnel Management, the proposed 2025-2027 Compensation Plan would affect the vast majority of the state’s nearly thirty thousand state employees. At stake are over $27 million of market parity adjustments, retention bonuses, high-vacancy add-ons, weekend shift premiums, pay progression restructurings, and much more. Though $27 million is a large number, it is less than three hundredths of one percent of Wisconsin’s $111 billion 2025-2027 budget.
Despite being a fleetingly small portion of the 2025-2027 state budget, these adjustments are big for state workers, who have been hit hard by the cost of living crisis. Per the Legislative Fiscal Bureau’s Paper 236, since 2016 the General Wage Adjustments (which are supposed to address cost of living increases) have lagged behind inflation by 14.1%. To make up for the effects of inflation, state workers often move between agencies, seeking roles that are better-paid, or they move to the private sector. In both cases, the public suffers from dedicated, skilled employees leaving in search of pay that better reflects their training and expertise. This constant churn of employment results in services being understaffed, with the staff who remain in those roles doing more work for less pay.
The proposed 2025-2027 Compensation Plan is a modest step towards addressing the chronic underpayment of state employees. We urge JCOER to meet and approve the plan. In support of this, we ask the public to join us for a rally starting at 5 PM on December 11, 2025 at the Wisconsin State Capitol Building, State Street side.
