Judges says Mo. corrections workers due $4 million

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Missouri probation and parole workers are entitled to more than $4 million in back pay because lawmakers illegally excluded the unionized workers from a pay raise granted to other state employees, a state judge ruled.

But Cole County Circuit Judge Richard Callahan stopped short of ordering the Legislature to spend money for the pay raise, saying that would infringe on the legislative branch's exclusive power to appropriate money.

Callahan's decision, dated April 9, is a follow up to his December 2005 ruling that legislators unlawfully denied probation and parole workers a $1,200 raise granted to other state workers. An appeals court upheld that decision last year. But neither ruling addressed how the probation and parole workers should be compensated.

Callahan's latest ruling says the probation and parole workers are entitled to more than $4.1 million in back pay covering 2004 to 2007, and the state also should pay more than $300,000 in taxes on that back pay.

But Callahan said he could not issue an injunction compelling the state to place probation and parole workers in a higher pay scale, because "a court may not order what it cannot enforce."

The Service Employees International Union Local 2000 had argued in its lawsuit that its members were retaliated against in the state budget because they had separately negotiated an average $1,215 annual pay raise several months earlier to compensate for increased duties and responsibilities.

The union claimed its members still were entitled to the similarly sized raise granted to other employees. The lawsuit noted that other classifications of employees who also had received separate raises still received the standard $1,200 raise in the state budget.

It's unclear if lawmakers will appropriate money for the pay raise as a result of Callahan's latest ruling. Republicans lawmakers have opposed it.

Democratic Sen. Chris Koster, of Harrisonville, planned to try Thursday to amend the proposed 2009 state budget to include nearly $4.5 million to satisfy judge's decision.