PHOENIX - An expected pay raise for UA employees could be delayed if Republican leaders challenge the bill Gov. Janet Napolitano signed into legislation Monday.
Napolitano signed a bill that would give a $1,650 raise to state employees, but her use of a line-item veto to remove five lines of the bill has enraged Republicans. They said her veto to negate portions of the bill, which removed protection from newly hired state employees, violated the Arizona Constitution.
Republicans now need to meet to decide whether to challenge the governor in court, said House Speaker Jim Weiers (R-10).
He said the governor's veto went beyond the narrow parameters governing a line-item veto.
The Arizona Constitution provides for the use of a line-item veto specifically to remove spending measures.
Napolitano removed a portion of the bill addressing personnel rules and labeled the change in Arizona law as an "appropriation" in her veto letter. She said the new rule governing newly hired state employees would generate costs, making it an appropriation.
Republicans say the governor overstepped her constitutional limits with the veto.
"We are trying to make sure the Constitution is preserved," Weiers said on the possibility of a court challenge.
Regardless of whether the pay raises are stalled by a court challenge, UA officials are at odds with the authors of the bill about how the university can spend the pay raises.
An author of the legislation, Rep. Russell Pearce (R-18) said he wrote the bill to combine a $1,650 pay raise intended for all state employees with a 2.5 percent raise based on merit. This amount would be given to the university in a lump sum to use at its discretion to decide on each employee's raise.
"They get a lump sum and they decide how to spend it," Pearce said.
The lump sum offers the flexibility to decide each employee's raise on an individual basis. Pearce said the lump sum was made at the insistence of university officials.
University officials said their interpretation of the pay raise would allow the UA to offer a $1,650 pay raise to all of its full-time employees and to distribute a secondary pay raise to employees depending on merit.
Greg Fahey, the UA vice president for government relations, said the UA would be given a total amount equaling 2.5 percent of the UA's payroll budget for employees. The fund would be distributed according to a merit-based pay plan currently being developed by the university.
Fahey said if there were no legal roadblocks, the $1,650 raise could be distributed to employees as early as mid-March.