Important Notice: Clarification on State Employee Pay for Performance raises and Benefit Improvements

[email protected] May 9, 2023 Comments Off on Important Notice: Clarification on State Employee Pay for Performance raises and Benefit Improvements
Important Notice: Clarification on State Employee Pay for Performance raises and Benefit Improvements

Pay for Performance clarification

We want to clarify a statement in our Legislative Update Week Ending 4-21-23.

In the update, we mentioned that based on the budget which just passed the legislature, state employees will receive an increase in base pay with funding equivalent to a 5% salary increase. However, this statement has caused confusion as some members have been asking about the timeline for their 5% raise.

To clarify, raises will be funded from a pool of money equivalent to a 5% increase. The actual percentages for Pay for Performance raises are determined later in the year using the allocated budget funds and your performance ratings. This confusion arises each year because the budget accounts for raise funding using percentage-based salary pools, which are then used by the Department of Human Resources (DoHR) to fund pay for performance raises. We must wait for DoHR to gather data on the final performance evaluation scores before they can officially announce salary increase percentages associated with each scoring level. As soon as DoHR makes an announcement, TSEA will share this information with you.


Other news related to salaries and benefits

This year, TSEA collaborated with the administration to help secure funding in the budget for salary adjustments for Judicial assistants.

Additionally, we have confirmed with Benefits Administration that, based on legislation we helped advance this year, the state will soon fund a percentage of dental premiums and offer free long-term disability for active state and higher education employees.

Improved Benefits

Here are details we recently received from Benefits Administration:

Governor Lee’s total compensation initiative seeks to make Tennessee State Government an employer of choice to aid in recruitment and retention of top talent. F&A’s Division of Benefits Administration is supporting this effort by developing a total compensation strategy to make the state’s benefits market competitive. The approved state budget for 2024 includes the following total compensation initiative recommendations for active state and higher education employees:

  • The state will fund 50% of the dental premiums
  • The state will cover 100% of the premiums for employee long-term disability insurance – 63% of monthly salary (up to $10K per month) with a 90 day waiting period
  • The state will pay 100% of the premiums for employee basic term life/basic AD&D insurance – 1x the employee’s base annual salary rounded to the next highest thousand ($50K minimum except when reduced at age milestones/$250K maximum)

These benefit enhancements will begin in calendar year 2024.

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TSEA will remind you of these improved benefits closer to the enrollment period, but these are tremendous additional benefits for active state and higher education employees!


Overall, this year has been another exceptional year in terms of investments in state employees by both the legislature and Governor Lee’s administration. We have worked diligently to consistently highlight and remind your elected officials of the outstanding work performed daily by Tennessee state and higher education employees.

These continued investments by the legislature and Governor’s administration at record levels demonstrate the high respect on the hill for state and higher ed employees.

We hope you will express your appreciation to your legislators and Gov. Lee for their support, and we also hope you encourage your colleagues to join TSEA, the only organization on the hill that works towards maintaining a positive image for state employees while advocating for and giving voice to state and higher education employees in Tennessee.

You can find all of the legislative updates for this year by visiting: http://tseaonline.org/category/legislative-updates/

Thank you for being a member of TSEA and for all you do every day serving Tennessee!