Tribal employees, except those working for the Muscogee Nation Department of Health, OneFire Holding Company and gaming ventures, will see gradual wage increases in the next three fiscal years.
The tribe's current minimum wage is $15. It'll be $16.67 this October, $18 next year and $20 starting on Oct. 1, 2028. Meanwhile, hourly full-time workers will receive a $5 wage increase amounting to around $10,400 per year.
To accommodate those raises, $52.5 million in funding will be split over the three-year period.
Tvlse Rep. Lucian Tiger authored the legislation, which was approved by the council 11-3 during its regular session. Tiger said it should help the tribe retain employees.
"That's something that we should be proud of as a nation, to be able to take care of our employees," Tiger told the council. "We lose a lot of employees because of pay. We have a hard time with retention because everyone in the room, I'm sure, can agree that money goes a long ways."
Second Speaker Thomasene Osborn voted against the bill. She said she felt the tribe wasn't ready to consider the increases because it has other pressing issues.
"If this legislation is approved today, it could throw finance into chaos because we haven't approved our budgets yet," Osborn said Saturday. "I do support an increase, but I just feel like right now that we have a lot of issues that we're trying to tackle."
Muscogee Principal Chief David Hill said he supports wage increases.
"I truly do support increases for our employees. They do a lot of work and we are behind," Hill said. "I know (Tribal Administrator Shane G. Holuby) has been working with HR to try to get where we can, where we need to be paying our employees what they should."
The tribe last increased its minimum wage from $10.15 to $15.00 in 2023.
Oklahoma's minimum wage is $7.25, the same as the federal minimum wage. That number hasn't increased since 2009.
In June, Oklahoma voters rejected increasing the wage to $15 an hour.
This report was produced by the Oklahoma Public Media Exchange, a collaboration of public media organizations. Help support collaborative journalism by donating at the link at the top of this webpage.
