State employees take care of Colorado’s communities. We are in every community in every corner of this beautiful state. We keep facilities like state hospitals, veterans homes and correctional facilities open 24/7--despite the risk to our health and our families--to ensure that our most vulnerable populations and our communities are safe. We keep our water and air clean and safe and maintain our roads and parks. We are providing support to unemployed workers and small business owners affected by the historic inflation because whether we work at home or in person at state facilities, we must take care of all working people. We are the unseen, and often unacknowledged, workforce that makes Colorado run.

The crisis we’re facing

But the truth is, decades of underfunding has thinned staff, depleted critical equipment, and created unsafe working conditions creating high turnover among people who work for the state, putting a strain on our ability to provide the best services. On average, Colorado state employees' pay is 16.4% below their peers working outside of state government. The situation is worse for the one in four state workers who are people of color. **The state pays Black, Latino and Native American employees, on average, 13 to 18 percent less than white employees.**That pushes people to leave the jobs they love in order to do what’s right for their family, making it more difficult for the employees who stay.

As the ones who serve communities from Durango to Limon, we believe public services should work for the people of Colorado, no matter how much money they have in the bank or what they look like. And we believe the folks serving our communities should be treated the same way. We should guarantee equity so that the people who serve Colorado can provide necessities for our family and keep their knowledge and expertise in state services, we must guarantee periodic wages that rewards years of service. These periodic increases, called “step raises”, provide a scale where workers can count on wages that reward their work and expertise.

This fall we are re-opening our union contract and negotiate for a fairer wage scale. We’re coming together with the state to fund step scales so that we can keep valuable employee expertise in public services.

But then it’s up to our elected officials to vote to fund this game-changing compensation model. So we need to vote for folks this fall who will stand with state employees and vote for step increases. Then we’ll need to show up at town halls, invite them to coffee, and even get them into our workplaces so they understand that a step scale will let us take care of our families while we take care of our communities.

Read on to see how you can get involved with the steps campaign.