A plan to give state government workers flat pay raises of $1,000 each was unveiled Wednesday in the committee that will put together the South Dakota budget in the next few days.

Rep. Mary Glenski, D-Sioux Falls, said her plan would give bigger raises to lower paid state employees than Gov. Mike Rounds' proposal to give a 2.5 percent salary increase to all state employees.

Glenski said workers making less than $40,000 would get bigger raises under her plan, while those earning more than $40,000 would get smaller raises than they would get in the governor's proposal. She said two-thirds of state employees would fare better under her plan than they would under the governor's proposal.

The pay raise, which is approved each year as part of the state budget, covers about 12,000 state employees, including university workers who are not instructors or administrators, Glenski said. University faculty and administrators get pay raises determined by the Board of Regents.

Glenski said her flat-rate proposal would save nearly $2.3 million in general funds compared with the governor's plan to give a 2.5 percent pay raise. She said a $1,000 flat raise would cost nearly $3.8 million less than the normal 3 percent raise given to state employees.

"Since this is a year when we're very concerned about the amount of money that comes out of general funds, I thought that this might be a worthwhile effort in that regard," Glenski told her colleagues on the Legislature's Joint Appropriations Committee.

The committee took no action Wednesday on Glenski's proposal, but she will offer it as an amendment when the panel begins debate on the $3.6 billion state budget in the next few days.

The committee will not start deliberations on the general budget until the House and Senate finish work on special spending measures. Until lawmakers know how much will be spent in those special appropriations bills, the Appropriations Committee cannot put the final touches on the overall budget.

The main run of the legislative session ends Friday, but lawmakers will return to the Capitol on March 17 to consider vetoes issued by the governor and any other last-minute issues.

One of the special spending measures debated this week is likely to be a compromise proposal to increase state aid to school districts, with an emphasis on raising teachers' salaries.

State administrators have generally opposed flat-rate pay raises for state workers in the past because it narrows the gap between pay ranges.

But Glenski said the state Bureau of Personnel has indicated that it's difficult to hire people at beginning salaries, and her proposal would deal with that problem.

"They would be able to offer a more realistic salary to people that come at the bottom of the stack for state employees," she said.