Some NC lawmakers’ staff get bigger raises than most state employees

While most state employees have seen their pay increase 5% since 2019, staffers for House Speaker Tim Moore have fared much better — receiving raises that range from 10% to as high as 31% over their 2019 salaries.

Meanwhile, work for Senate Republican leaders and you’re more likely to earn a six-figure salary. While Moore and top House Republicans only have three staffers who make more than $100,000 annually, Senate leader Phil Berger and other leaders in that chamber have 10 staffers making more than $100,000.

Both Berger and Moore’s offices released 2021 salary information following a public records request from the NC Insider.

The highest paid staffer working for legislative leaders is Berger’s chief of staff, Brian Fork, an attorney who took the job last year. He makes $188,000 — well above the $147,300 salary of Moore’s chief of staff, Neal Inman, and the $162,889 salary of Gov. Roy Cooper’s chief of staff, Kristi Jones.

Other top salaries in the Senate include general counsel Joshua Yost ($140,000); Brent Woodcox, the senior policy counsel for the finance and elections committees’ chairman, Sen. Paul Newton ($135,000), and Nathan Babcock, the senior policy advisor for the Health Committee chairwoman, Sen. Joyce Krawiec ($125,000).

Asked about the higher number of six-figure salaries than House leaders’ staff, Berger said he hasn’t done a comparison. But he said the salaries match up with what his staffers might make in comparable jobs with other government agencies.

“We’ve got a staff on the Senate side that has a wealth of experience,” Berger said. “Our members depend on them, rely on them, and I feel like every member of our staff could probably go out in the private sector and make a lot more money than they’re making here.”

Some of Berger’s staffers have recently left for other, higher-paying jobs. Alex Fagg, who made $52,531 earlier this year as a policy advisor for Berger, recently took a job leading government relations for the N.C. Community College System. The new role pays $85,000, state salary records show.

Berger’s previous chief of staff, Andrew Tripp, left last fall to take a job as general counsel and senior vice president for legal, risk and compliance at the UNC System. Tripp now has a salary of $280,000; he made $179,500 in Berger’s office in 2019.

While Moore and top House Republicans have fewer staff who make more than $100,000, most of them who have stayed in the same positions since 2019 have seen generous raises.

The biggest went to policy advisor Christopher Pittman, who saw his pay jump 31% to $71,400 over two years. During the same time period, senior policy advisor Nelson Dollar (a former Wake County legislator) got a 14% raise to $133,433. And policy advisor Cory Bryson got a 17% raise to $80,950.

Of the six Moore staffers whose job titles did not change between 2019 and 2021, only one received a raise of less than 10%. Meanwhile, the legislature in late 2019 approved a series of two 2.5% pay increases for most state employees. One took effect at the time, the other in July 2020 — meaning a state employee whose job didn’t change over the past two years has had a pay increase of 5%.

Asked why his staff got bigger raises than most state employees, Moore said “I think everyone who got a big raise picked up additional duties.”

He noted that with last year’s departure of then-chief of staff Bart Goodson, many of his staff saw their responsibilities change. “They all picked up more work,” he said.

Four of Moore’s staffers did get promotions to new job titles recently, and they saw even bigger raises that the staff whose titles didn’t change. Trafton Dinwiddie got a 53% raise as he moved from research assistant to policy advisor. Brittany Eller got a 36% raise as she moved up from executive assistant to policy advisor. And Dan Gurley got a 30% raise as he moved from policy advisor to deputy chief of staff.

In Berger’s office, five staffers who did not receive promotions between 2019 and 2021 saw their pay increase 5% — the same as the across-the-board raises lawmakers approved for most state workers.

The State Employees Association of North Carolina, or SEANC, has advocated for bigger raises for state employees. Asked about the legislative staff raises, Executive Director Ardis Watkins said that “if those positions were underpaid when compared to the market, we would support raises.”

But Watkins said she’s hopeful this year’s budget could be good news for more state workers. “With the unprecedented surplus available, this year provides the opportunity for the state to make up lost ground from decades where state employee pay did not rise as much as the private sector,” she said in an email.

“So we do not hold a decent raise against any public worker — we just hope to see that for everyone this year.”

For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Under the Dome politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it at link.chtbl.com/underthedomenc or wherever you get your podcasts.

This story was originally published June 21, 2021 at 11:58 AM.