CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- As Gov. Manchin prepares to leave his current office and ascend to new heights in Washington, D.C., it seems an appropriate time to review the dichotomy of his tenure and the plight of state employees.

During the governor's five and a half years in office, he has managed to tackle the State's Workers Compensation liability, increased the state's rainy day fund, improve the state's bond rating, weather a severe economic downturn without the need for significant tax increases or state employee furloughs and show great compassion during the recent mining disasters. Clearly, these accomplishments have benefited the state and are indicative of a man who can get things done.

During his tenure, Gov. Manchin has also seen fit to dismantle the state's merit raise system, saying the system was not truly based on merit and only a means of addressing pay inequities.

Well, it's been five and a half years and despite a wealth of examples and hiring a former personnel director as a consultant, the governor still has been unable to approve a workable method for rewarding state employees that do exemplary work. It seems apparent that the governor has developed a merit raise policy; he doesn't want one, but is afraid to admit that to state employees.

Despite high levels of unemployment, state agencies have hundreds of vacancies that remain unfilled because qualified candidates will not apply at the base salary level. These jobs offer great benefits, yet even in a severe recession people are not applying. Regardless of the benefits being provided, the total compensation is obviously not sufficient to attract applicants.

The Manchin administration has indicated that a top to bottom review of state employee compensation and salaries is needed to account for added responsibilities and address inequities that may exist. Five and a half years later, the needed review has yet to get off the ground for general state government.

However, Gov. Manchin has successfully increased the salaries of his staff as well as for Kyle Schafer of the Office of Technology, citing their added responsibilities. For the rest of us who have had to take on added work, we are simply reminded that our work description includes the phrase "perform other duties as required" and that we need to suck it up.

 His actions continue to demonstrate that the governor gets things he wants done. Unfortunately, it appears that the governor is only paying lip service to those state employees outside his inner circle and sees no need to get this done.

Despite the lack of general action on salary ranges, to help fill the numerous vacancies, the administration has embraced the policy of allowing agencies to offer new employees the "market rate salary" for their pay grade, which is much higher than the entry-level salary. This has resulted in new employees making significantly more than the seasoned individuals who train them to do their jobs. To the chagrin of managers, this has not surprisingly left many employees disgruntled and unmotivated. The choice as presented to staff is: you can either have a vacancy and have to do all the work yourself or let us hire someone making more than you to help shoulder the load, but we can't change your salary. While I don't begrudge the new people receiving a fair wage, it sends a poor message to the rest of us stuck at the bottom of the pay scale with no way to advance regardless of the quality or quantity of our work. Although far from ideal, merit raises had allowed managers to address such inequalities.

I'm sure that for citizens outside state government who are unemployed as a result of the global recession these items seem trivial, but for those of us in state government they are important topics. Perhaps if the economic slowdown had not occurred, the administration would have felt more compelled to address these issues.

The question now is: Will a new administration be any more inclined to address these issues than the current one? Hopefully a new administration will provide some straight answers and not foot drag for another five and a half years.

Watson works for the state Division of Highways.