Hawaiʻi state and local governments invested in executives and senior managers with a recent round of hefty raises that did not extend to a majority of the public-sector workforce, the latest update to Civil Beat’s Public Employee Salary database shows.
Raises for many top bosses on July 1 — and other increases approved or in the works — are among the largest jumps for government workers since the database was launched in 2011, ranging from 15% at the state level to more than 50% at the county level for a select group of appointed and elected officials.
Boosts for most rank-and-file workers, meanwhile, hovered near the rate of inflation, estimated by the state at 3% this year in Honolulu. More than half the government workforce — 50,000 out of 94,000 employees — received increases of between about 2% and 4% this year following union negotiations…