Kansas legislators were right to award a small pay raise to state employees in the two-year spending plan approved Saturday.

Considering that many state employees haven’t received a pay increase in nearly a decade, the pay bump was overdue.

The bill calls for $31.3 billion in spending, $15.5 billion in the fiscal year that begins July 1 and $15.8 billion next year. State employees who have been on the job less than five years will get a 2.5 percent pay raise starting July 1, as will all judicial branch employees. Those who have been on the job longer but have not seen any salary adjustment in five years would get a 5 percent pay raise.

Caregivers who are reimbursed through Medicaid for taking care of people receiving home- and community-based services, who have not seen a rate increase since 2002, would see a 3 percent pay raise starting July 1 and an additional 1 percent next year.

The bill includes other funding decisions that should be applauded, including the restoration of some funding that was cut from the budgets of the University of Kansas and Kansas State University.

All Regents universities were cut an average of 4 percent in the face of revenue shortfalls last year, but KU and Kansas State took 5 percent cuts. The spending bill restores the additional 1 percent.

The bill also provides increased funding for community mental health centers and $4.7 million to add 20 psychiatric beds at Osawatomie State Hospital.

If there is a concern about the spending bill, it is that it continues the risky strategy of delaying payments to the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System. The bill did not include funding to repay quarterly payments into KPERS that was delayed in 2016 and calls for delaying more payments this year and in 2019. The bill calls for the payments to be repaid with interest over a 20-year period, but messing around with long-term pension fund obligations have landed many states in financial hot water.

Still, there’s a lot to like in the 2017 budget bill. Legislators finished the session, tied for the longest in state history, with something that has been absent from recent sessions: optimism that the state is back on the right fiscal track.