17,000 public servants receive salary review adjustments

More than 17,000 public servants received salary review adjustments on Tuesday, fulfilling a commitment made by Prime Minister Philip Davis that payments would be issued before Christmas, according to Director of Communications Latrae Rahming.

Rahming said the adjustments are part of a broader effort to narrow long-standing pay gaps between the public service and the quasi-public sector.

The annualized cost of this latest payout is $20 million. Over the past four years, the Davis administration has provided more than $60 million in salary adjustments for public officers.

He noted that the salary component of the national budget has grown faster than any other area during the last four years, reflecting what he described as the Government’s ongoing investment in “its greatest resource — its employees.”

The 2024–2025 Budget Communication outlined the Government’s plan to initiate a salary review for senior public officers. Rahming said the work was “complex” and designed to be implemented over multiple budget cycles. While carrying out the review, the Government ensured that all existing industrial agreements were honored and that promotions continued uninterrupted.

Rahming emphasized that this is the first government-initiated salary review exercise in more than 20 years outside of union-negotiated wage increases.

While some have questioned the timing and size of the payouts, Rahming said the adjustments should not be viewed in isolation. Instead, they should be considered within the context of the Government’s broader commitment to achieving equity within the public sector.

He explained that the review began with senior and middle management, who faced the largest discrepancies when compared to employees in quasi-government corporations.

However, lower-level staff received the highest percentage increases because fixed increments were applied across the board.

An employee on the M6 scale earning minimum wage in January 2022 would have seen a 27.5% increase in salary from wage adjustments alone.

A trained teacher would have received a 19.8% increase, along with a new $1,400 adjustment — the largest annual increase for trained teachers under the Bahamas Union of Teachers’ most recent agreement.

A Deputy Permanent Secretary would have seen a 15.8% increase.

Rahming highlighted the Prime Minister’s wider record, noting that civil servants have received salary increases every year since 2021, a level of consistency not seen in more than a decade.