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State employees are getting a cold shoulder from state lawmakers for the second year in a row. No one but state troopers are going to see a pay increase. The goose egg on their pay increase comes a year after there was just a thousand dollar bonus in the budget. It is causing some lawmakers, including Lorrane Ausley of Tallahassee to cast a no vote.

“The people who carry out those priorities are state employees and we cannot continue to disrespect them by not paying them,” Ausley said. “There is no corporation or business in the state or in this country that asks the people who carry out its mission to do so without respect and without pay. That is what we are doing with this budget.

Layoffs are likely in some departments. Those who stay have been encouraged to apply for promotions in lieu of a raise.