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State workers have fought off 300 million dollars in pay cuts, but they’re not off the hook yet. Higher paid state employees still face a 30 million dollar cut. As Whitney Ray tells us, the cut comes on top of three straight years without a pay raise.

They rallied, prayed, and now state workers are winning a budget battle against severe pay cuts. Just a week ago lawmakers were considering a 330 million dollar cut to state salaries.

“Now they’ve gone to a figure that is less than 10 percent of what they were talking about,” said Doug Martin a spokesman with AFSCME.

Everyone making less than 65,000 is off the hook. People making more could see a one percent cut. One percent may not seem like much but the cut would leave nearly 10,000 state employees with at lest 650 fewer dollars to spend on food, clothing, and bills.

Senator Al Lawson said the cuts will have a negative impact on the economy.

“It hurts the economy because people have less money to spend,” said Lawson.

Governor Charlie Crist said pay cuts are better than the alternative.

“I think some reduction is not unreasonable, but it sure is better than losing a job,” said Crist.

And with record high unemployment finding another job could be more difficult than living with less. There are 104-thousand state employees in Florida. 20,000 work in Leon County.