BOSTON - This week, Gov. Maura Healey signed a supplemental budget honoring raises for many public sector workers. Some had been waiting for almost a year. 

Community college faculty and staff, doctors, and nurses at state-run facilities, all waited for months for raises agreed upon by the state and the union as long ago as last November. 

“I would call it, reserved jubilation," Joe Nardoni, the vice president of Massachusetts Community College Council. "And the reserved part is important because, these races are going to help, our members a lot, particularly our members who are on the lower end of our pay scale. But in truth, they do not even, bring current members on the lower end of our pay scale up to the level of the pay scale where it was when I joined back in 1995."

Now, after Healey signed a supplemental budget for $362 million, employees are getting paid. And agencies are getting funding. But some labor leaders say it's still not enough for employees who work at the state facilities near Boston like the Chelsea Soldier’s home. They say its hard to find a place to live near the hospital. 

“You know, it's very expensive to live, you know, within a reasonable commuting distance from there. And we're, we're it's a 24-hour facility, seven days a week in snowstorms,” said David Guiney, the co-chair of Unit 7 of the Massachusetts Nurses Association. 

Doug Howgate, the president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a group who identifies as a non-partisan analyst of the fiscal health of the state says this will not be the last supplemental signing we see from the governor. 

“There's probably more like a 200 to $300 million budget gap,” said Howgate. “The administration had to close. And so they put forward, a variety of proposals to do that. So that is still being considered by the House and the Senate. And they probably won't act on that certainly until October.”

These groups are already in negotiations for next year's contract and they say they are trying to find ways to increase retention by negotiating more vacation time and other benefits on top of the salary to try and keep top talent here in the state.