Employee Raises in the Wisconsin State Budget: Amount and Eligibility

Wisconsin state employee raises under the 2025-2027 biennial budget come in two steps: a 3% general wage adjustment for fiscal year 2025-26 and a 2% general wage adjustment for fiscal year 2026-27.¹ The Joint Committee on Employment Relations approved the plan on December 11, 2025, which covers roughly 40,000 classified employees.² On top of those percentages, corrections security staff, several hard-to-fill technical and clinical classifications, and employees working nights or weekends get additional pay.

How Much and When

The 3% increase was officially effective June 29, 2025, but the payroll system didn’t implement it until August 10, 2025.³ To close that gap, employees received a one-time lump sum reflecting the 3% difference for every hour worked between June 29 and August 9, 2025. The 2% increase takes effect June 28, 2026, and shows up in the first paycheck processed after that date.¹

Both percentages apply to your base hourly rate, and both move the minimum and maximum of every pay range up by the same amount so longtime employees near the top of their range still benefit. One limit: neither increase can push your base pay above the maximum of your pay range. If the full percentage would carry you over the ceiling, your pay stops at the range maximum.

Retroactive pay is calculated automatically. The Department of Administration’s payroll system compares your old hourly rate against the new rate for every hour you were in pay status during the gap and issues the difference as a lump sum on the normal biweekly cycle.⁴

Who Gets the Raise

Eligibility is simple: you must hold a permanent or project position in the classified service and be in pay status on the effective date.¹ Pay status means you’re actively on the payroll, not on unpaid leave, not separated, not between appointments. Resign or get terminated before the effective date and you don’t receive the adjustment.

You do not need a satisfactory performance evaluation to receive the general wage adjustment. The plan excludes only two groups from the across-the-board percentages: trainees on a scheduled pay progression (who follow their own timeline) and classified legal positions (covered under a separate section of the plan).

Probationary Employees

If you’re still in your original probationary period, you qualify for the general wage adjustment as long as you’re in pay status on the effective date.¹ Other pay adjustments do have probationary restrictions. Employees in their first 12 months of original probation can’t receive a Discretionary Equity or Retention Adjustment, and a within-range pay step increase only becomes available after you complete your first six months.⁵

Limited Term Employees

Limited term employees generally don’t receive the general wage adjustment. Their pay is set under a separate framework with “not to exceed” rates tied to their classification, and they’re ineligible for most base pay increases available to permanent staff.¹ A few narrow exceptions exist, including when an LTE’s pay was set using the permanent pay range minimum, but most limited term workers don’t get the percentage increase.

Universities of Wisconsin Employees

UW System employees got matching 3% and 2% increases on the same schedule, but UW adds its own layer: employees must complete mandatory training and perform at a satisfactory level to remain eligible.⁶ That satisfactory-performance requirement is a UW policy, not a statewide rule for other classified employees.

What You’ll Actually Keep

A gross raise doesn’t translate dollar-for-dollar into take-home pay, and one deduction is going up at roughly the same time. The required employee contribution to the Wisconsin Retirement System rises to 7.2% of earnings in 2026, up from 6.95% in 2025.⁷ The rate applies to all employee categories (general, executive, elected, and protective occupation) and is a percentage of pay, so the dollar amount of your retirement contribution rises automatically when your base rate goes up.

Health insurance is the other major deduction. The 2025-2027 budget shortened the waiting period for new employees to receive the employer share of health insurance premiums from three months to two.⁸ Premium amounts vary by plan tier and coverage level, with updated rate tables published by the Department of Employee Trust Funds each plan year. To estimate what you’ll keep, subtract the WRS contribution, your health premium, and federal and state tax withholding from the gross pay change.

Extra Pay on Top of the General Raise

The 3% and 2% are the floor. Several groups receive additional pay stacked on top.

Corrections Security Staff

The budget keeps the $5-per-hour add-on for correctional officers, sergeants, and agents at Waupun Correctional Institution and at any institution where vacancy rates among security classifications exceed 40%.⁹ It also funds an enhanced pay progression for probation and parole agents, a new advanced-level agent classification, and parity pay for correctional field supervisors. These stack on the general wage adjustment.

Hard-to-Fill Classifications

The plan includes dedicated pay provisions for information technology positions (with a structured pay progression), social workers, treatment specialists, engineers, financial examiners, and advanced practice nurses in psychiatry, among others.¹ These are market-based adjustments where the state has had trouble competing with private-sector salaries.

Shift Differentials

If you work evenings, nights, or weekends, shift differentials add to your hourly rate on top of base pay adjustments. Current rates for permanent classified employees:¹

Night differential: $0.80 per hour for work between 6:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m.
Weekend differential: $0.80 per hour for Saturday and Sunday hours.
Nursing night differential: $1.40 per hour for night hours, plus an additional $2.50 per hour for nurses assigned to permanent evening or night rotations.
Standby pay: $3.00 per hour when you’re required to be available and report within one hour.

Limited term employees receive the same shift differentials as permanent employees in comparable classifications, as long as the supplemental pay is based on hours worked.

State Patrol Troopers

Trooper wages are set through collective bargaining with the Wisconsin Law Enforcement Association rather than the standard compensation plan. The WLEA contract for 2025-2027 was still pending legislative approval as of late 2025.²

Why the Raise Is Capped at a Percentage

Wisconsin’s 2011 Act 10 still shapes how pay increases work for most state employees. Under Act 10, employees classified as “general employees” can only bargain collectively over base wages, and bargained base wage increases cannot exceed the consumer price index change published by the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission.¹⁰ For mid-2026, that cap is 2.63%. A larger raise would require a statewide referendum. Employers can provide additional non-base compensation above the cap, such as one-time lump sums, but those extras are decided unilaterally rather than bargained.

Public safety employees and transit workers are exempt from the CPI cap and keep broader bargaining rights covering wages, fringe benefits, and working conditions.¹⁰ That exemption is why the State Patrol’s WLEA contract is negotiated separately.

Last Biennium for Comparison

The previous two-year cycle delivered a larger first-year increase. Classified employees received a 4% general wage adjustment effective October 22, 2023, followed by a 2% adjustment effective June 30, 2024.¹¹ The 2023-2025 cycle also introduced the correctional officer pay restructuring and the $5-per-hour institutional add-ons that the current plan maintains. Total general wage increase across the biennium dropped from 6% to 5%.

1
Department of Administration Division of Personnel Management. State of Wisconsin Compensation Plan 2025-2027
2
Division of Personnel Management. State of Wisconsin Compensation Plan
3
Wisconsin State Legislature. Summary of Proposed 2025-27 State Compensation Plan Provisions
4
Wisconsin Department of Administration. Retroactive Pay Job Aid
5
Wisconsin State Legislature. Wisconsin Administrative Code Chapter ER 29 – Compensation
6
Universities of Wisconsin. Pay Plan – Frequently Asked Questions
7
Wisconsin Department of Employee Trust Funds. 2026 WRS Contribution Rates Approved by ETF Board
8
Wisconsin Department of Administration. 2025-27 Budget in Brief
9
Wisconsin State Legislature. Compensation Reserves – Compensation for Employees of the Department of Corrections
10
Wisconsin State Legislature. 2011 Wisconsin Act 10
11
Wisconsin Department of Administration. State of Wisconsin Compensation Plan 2023-2025