Gov. Mike Pence is following through with the pay raises his predecessor promised to about 90 percent of Indiana's state employees.
The new Republican governor announced Tuesday that a total of $38 million in raises -- a 3.1 percent increase on average for the 26,000 workers who qualify will show up on this week's pay checks.
"The state of Indiana has one of the most talented, skilled and effective workforces in the nation," Pence said in a statement. "It's important to reward those who do a top-level job to help make Indiana a better place to live."
The raises are based on employees' performance. About one out of every 20 workers earned "outstanding" evaluations and will receive 8 percent raises.
The one in 10 whose reviews said they "exceed expectations" got 5 percent pay bumps. And the 75 percent of state workers who met expectations received an extra 3 percent.
The remaining 10 percent who fell short of expectations did not receive raises.
Daniels announced the pay increases in December, as he prepared to leave office, in a letter to all of Indiana's workers.
"This continues our practice of rewarding our employees doing the best job serving our taxpayers, a one-of-a-kind performance based system for state governments across the country," he said then.
The pay-for-performance system was instituted by Daniels in 2006.
The raises for 2013 are slightly higher than what Daniels had authorized a year ago -- 6 percent for outstanding workers, 4 percent for those who exceeded expectations and 2 percent for those who met expectations.
The year before that, he had handed out raises that averaged 1.3 percent, and in 2009 and 2010, he opted to keep workers' salaries flat as the state weathered the economic downturn.
