With the election season at its climax and a dingy economic future ahead, the time isn’t ideal for state workers to ask for a pay raise.

However, that’s exactly the predicament the Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE), a union that represents 2,500 service workers at the UW, must face.

With a looming deadline of Oct. 1 to make their pitch for a 2.25 percent salary increase into the governor’s budget, the WFSE had to negotiate with the UW and other state service management. Despite the deadline, the WFSE still edged out their pay raise negotiations an extra quarter of a percent over most state workers.

“This is one of the largest pay raises negotiated this year, and one of the earliest,” said Tim Hughes, a spokesman for WFSE. “If we didn’t get it done by Oct. 1, we’d be in troubling waters, but now we’ve got the first step out of the way.”

In order for negotiations to be passed by the state legislature, they must first be figured into the governor’s budget proposal. Given the WFSE’s outspoken support of incumbent Gov. Christine Gregoire and its monetary support of pro-Gregoire and anti-Dino Rossi organizations, the group has come under fire by conservative organizations who suggest that shady business might be going on.

“I think it’s something that really needs to be scrutinized,” said Tom Henry, from Olympia-based think-tank Evergreen Freedom Foundation (EFFWA). “Collective bargaining for state employees is being conducted behind closed doors. These meetings should be open to the public.”

Despite proposed amendments in 2002 to prevent unions that were actively negotiating from making campaign contributions, there is no deterring law.

“I think it’s a matter of ethics and not legality,” said Henry. “It looks like a conflict of interest, even if it isn’t.”

The WFSE denies having substantial influence or even partisanship.

“If we were getting something for the hundreds of thousands of dollars we’ve contributed, we would have gotten more than 2.25 percent,” said Huges. “This is the first time we’ve contributed like this. We’re non-partisan. We went through a process where we discussed which candidate was most suitable ... and we determined it was the governor.”

In addition to the pay increase across the board, the WFSE has also negotiated to keep health care co-pays at their current 12 percent, despite the perpetual increase of the rate since 1995; a position which Rossi is against.

“Rossi has gone public saying that we cannot afford pay raises, that we shouldn’t be bargaining under this law and that we should raise the amount of money that employees pay for their healthcare,” said Hughes. “He’s made it an issue that somehow we’re doing something wrong by negotiating [during election season]. Unfortunately, there’s an October deadline, and that’s the law.”

A point of contention on both sides of the debate is Rossi’s campaign assertion that the state has incurred a $3 billion deficit under Gregoire. The WFSE put out a press release criticizing Rossi.

“Gregoire’s point is that we don’t have a deficit right now,” said Henry. “The Senate Ways and Means staff is saying that in the next year, we’re going to be seeing some serious budget deficits.”

Because states must have balanced budgets by federal law, space on the governor’s budget proposal is a precious commodity. Still, a pay raise for state service workers is nothing to bank on.

“If the economy takes a dip, that’s where [the legislature] could exercise their option to say we can afford it or that we can’t,” said Hughes. “Then there would be a zero percent pay raise, and we’d have to go back to the table.”

The pay raise is part of a two-year contract which stipulates a 2.25-percent raise for state service workers starting July 1, 2009, and another a year later. Although the legislature can deny the contracts due to budget constraints, the stipulations of the contracts themselves cannot be altered. This ensures that the contracts are a collaborative agreement between the employer, employees and the state.

“The bottom line here is that it’s not an issue of pay,” said Hughes. “We value state employees, and we want to attract and keep the good workers on the job and keep them there for a long time. This is a cost-effective way to do it.”

Reach reporter Jeff Tripoli at news@dailyuw.com.