Gov. Mark Dayton has signed a bill giving tens of thousands of state employees a 2 percent raise.  
 
The contracts include the first raise in more than three years. It covers about 35,000 employees from seven different working groups, including the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 5 and the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees.  
 
But Republican Representative Steve Drazkowski says the contracts will have a $250 million impact in the next biennium on state taxpayers, and a good number of the employees will get as much as nine or ten percent increases under existing automatic benefit increases.

The new deal will expire June 30. Dayton says he will push to include same-sex domestic partnership benefits in the next contract.