SOME GET STATE PAY RAISES THAT LIFE EYEBROWS

These are hard times for state government, we are repeatedly told.

Missouri Gov. Bob Holden has made this theme a hallmark of his first six months in office.

He made news again this past week with his prospective withholdings and wide-ranging budget cuts.

(The details of these are still under consideration and yet to be disclosed.)

Set against this recurrent theme, news of raises for a tiny handful of top state managers was all the more surprising. As readers will recall, rank-and-file state workers went without any cost-of-living adjustments for fiscal year 2001, which began July 1.

Raises for the select few included an eye-popping one in the governor's office.

Press spokesman Jerry Nachtigal has received a raise of $13,140, from $70,860 a year to $84,000.

Spokesmanship for the governor is hard work, apparently, and the person doing it must be well compensated.

Nachtigal had resigned last winter and taken a job with H&R Block in Kansas City but returned in April, saying he'd decided the job wasn't as interesting as being the governor's spokesman.

Others in the lucky pay-increase category:

Ronald Cates, deputy director in the Department of Health, who received a raise of $3,168, from $96,840 to $100,008.

Gerald Ross, assistant director of the Department of Conservation, who received an increase of $1,860, from $$92,844 to $94,707.

Jerry Adams, new director of the Missouri Water Patrol, who is making $420 more than his predecessor.

Gary Kempker, new director of the Department of Corrections, who will be making $1 more a month after moving from his previous position as director of the Department of Public Safety.

Missourians will continue to scratch their heads and wonder at the Holden administration, hanging crepe about state finances and denying raises to the rank and file, while a half-dozen top managers are seeing raises ranging from small to embarrassingly large.