The employees have been told they’d receive two raises at the first of the year – a two-step Civil Service increase approved by the Legislature and Gov. Mike Foster and shift-differential pay, defined as compensatory payfor working nights, weekends and holidays.

The Civil Service-directed raise, according to the port’s Executive Director Gary LaGrange, should show up on the employees’ next paycheck.

Paperwork for the shift differential pay, however, has not been sent to the state for approval.

At the Sept. 16 meeting of the South Louisiana Port Commission, LaGrangepledged the port’s cooperation with a state directive to increase pay rates for skilled employees as of Jan. 1.The new pay increase should be on the next checks, according to LaGrange.

The pay rate, approved by the Legislature on May 7 and mandated by Gov.

Foster’s July 13 approval, means an average pay increase of 10.5 percentfor all skilled state civil service employees.

Betty Mandeville of the Louisiana Department of State Civil Service said the pay increase was approved to enable the state to recruit and retain civil service employees who might otherwise be lured away by private industry’s ever-increasing pay scales.

A Sept. 15 memorandum from Director of Port Operations Mitch Smithlikewise stated the pay increase would improve the pay for all deckhands, engineers and captains in the Harbor Services Division.

A firetug captain’s pay scale average starts at $1,565 and goes to a top- out rate of $2,584 per month. A marine engineer starts at $1,194 and goesto $1,971. A deckhand, on the lowest end of the scale, starts at $974 permonth and tops out at $1,609 per month, according to civil service guidelines.

The two-level pay upgrade would move deckhands to a rate of $1,116 to a top-out of $1,842 per month; engineers would move to a rate of $1,367 to $2,257; and a fireboat captain would move to a rate of $1,791 to $2,958 per month.

On the other hand, delays appear to have set in on paying Harbor Services shift-differential pay.

At that same Sept. 16 meeting when the state pay increase was discussed,LaGrange said officials were told by state Civil Service that Harbor Services personnel do not qualify for shift differential pay. If the portchose to grant such pay, he said, it would be up to the port to do so.

The South Louisiana Port Commission approved the shift differential pay rate at its Dec. 9 meeting.”The paperwork’s been sent in and we’re waiting for approval,” LaGrange said Monday.

However, Lisa Lusk of State Civil Service said no such application from the port had been received as of Tuesday morning.

Catherine Davis of the port office declared she hadn’t heard of the Dec. 9approval to begin the paperwork. “I have no authorization on that yet,” shesaid Monday.

Later in the day, though, she confirmed the process was started and the paperwork should go out in a matter of days for state approval.

LaGrange confirmed that, but only after first declaring the paperwork was sent in the week before Christmas. He backtracked to say Davis had beenon vacation the week before Christmas and hadn’t known of the commission’s approval.

Once the state receives the application, LaGrange said, approval should be received in two weeks.

LaGrange himself earns, according to his contract, $106,000 per year.

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