Spending on Victorian public servants to rise $3.2b in one year Share The biggest individual cost to the Victorian government, public service wages and superannuation payments, will rise almost 10 per cent next financial year, a sign of the long financial tail caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Victorian budget papers published Thursday forecast a 9.6 per cent increase, worth $3.2 billion, in the cost of employees to $36 billion, mainly due to increased spending on health and education in response to COVID-19. Premier Daniel Andrews leads a union rally to call for higher pay in Melbourne in 2018. While Victoria went through one of the toughest pandemic lockdowns in the world, COVID-19 appears to have been eliminated in the state.