Lies can be pesky things too.    The general sense was that State employees had ridden the Oil Boom up and didn't ride the Bust down.   Even so, they got general increases based directly on CPI-U in '90-'92.   Hickel limited wage offers to half CPI and we didn't have many takers.   We put some very attractive offers out late in Hickel but the unions decided they'd rather try to buy a Governor and angry employees with no contracts would help with that.  From '94 through '02 you had an Administration more interested in using State employees to play politics than it was in their wages, hours, and conditions.   We did a 0% rollover in '03 then  in '04 made a 3%/yr, 3 year offer that the unions accepted for Class 2/3 then a 4 - 3 -3% offer to the Class Ones, which the interest arbitrators accepted.   The agreements early in Palin were in the same realm, at or even above Anchorage CPI increases.   I stopped paying much attention after that.