The basic problem is people stupidly think that a "state employee" is always someone like the clerks at the DMV, when in actual fact, it includes public univers

The basic problem is people stupidly think that a "state employee" is always someone like the clerks at the DMV, when in actual fact, it includes public university medical school professors and similar high-skilled people, the hiring of whom requires high salaries due to competition with other hiring institutions. If you want to pay a professor of cardiovascular surgery as if he were a DMV clerk, you're not going to get a professor worth hiring. It also includes high-skilled people being asked to work in unusually unsafe or unpleasant situations, for example prison psychiatrists.