The county budget committee has hashed out a proposed 2016-17 spending plan. The new budget, approved by the committee last week.
A new pay plan for county employees has caused some controversy, however.
The plan calls for employees of the offices of Trustee, Register of Deeds, County Clerk, Assessor of Property, County Mayor, Circuit Court Clerk, and Clerk and Master to receive step raises at a percentage of what their employer earns. That would mean that employees of the mayor’s office would make more than some others, because the mayor is paid more than the other county officials.
Circuit Court Clerk Katherine Pack spoke before the budget committee at the meeting Tuesday night, saying that she did not feel it was fair for employees of one county office to make more than others.
“Just because the mayor makes more than I do doesn’t mean his employees work any harder than mine do. Let’s just take a thousand dollars increase. That amounts to between $27 and $30 dollars a pay period. I appreciate and they (employees) appreciate anything that they get but it’s almost like an insult to say you're going to get a good pay raise but when you put it down to a pay period, it’s less than $30 dollars per pay period,” Pack said.
Pack also expressed concern that the budget committee formulated the plan without consulting county officials. “My feelings have really been hurt over this, because we weren’t consulted or anything,” she said.
Trustee Sean Driver also voiced his displeasure with the situation.
“I don’t know what I have done against the budget committee, but I would like to have it known that this was being discussed about my employees. I will put my employees up against anybody’s. It’s my understanding that Mr. Stribling wanted to discuss this with the elected officials three weeks ago, but I don’t know what happened between that time and now. We thought that everything would be transparent. Evidently it’s not. This difference between one office compared to six offices, the majority usually rules, but in this case I guess it doesn’t. I disagree with it, but I sure would liked to have known this was going to happen, and I am disheartened about it,” Driver told the committee members.
“I’m sorry we didn’t ask you to at least attend and talk about it,” said Budget Committee member Jack Barton. “I’m disheartened that in four years’ time there has been no opportunity for anybody to get a raise, so to me tying to those adjusted increases the state passes on to your office, or Tim’s office, or whatever, makes sense. In the last four years, your associates would have gotten two raises by now that we would not have had to vote on.”
“Instead of giving raises on a whim, we wanted to tie it with something that separated us from saying ‘Hey what are we going to do this year?’ We’ve got a formula now,” added committee member Larry Summers.
Step 1 of the new plan calls for the salaries of first year employees of the Trustee, Register of Deeds, County Clerk, Assessor of Property, Circuit Court Clerk, and the Clerk and Master to go from $24,182 to $25,436 per year, or 39 percent of their employer’s salary. Salaries of the county mayor employees with one year of service would go from $24,182 to $29,378, or 39 percent of their employer’s salary.
Step 2: 40 percent of their employer’s salary - two years of service
Step 3: 41 percent of their employer’s salary - three years of service
Step 4: 42 percent of their employer’s salary - four years of service
Step 5: 44 percent of their employer’s salary - eight years of service
The library director, Election Commission Office employee, and Soil Conservation Secretary would be on the same scale, with their salaries a percentage of $65,221 which is what the Trustee, Register of Deeds, County Clerk, Assessor of Property, Circuit Court Clerk, and Clerk and Master earn.
Full time library employees and the Senior Citizens Director would get a percentage of $65,221 based on the following scale for them:
Step 1: 31 percent of $65,221 - one year of service
Step 2: 32 percent of $65,221 - two years of service
Step 3: 34 percent of $65,221 - three years of service
Step 4: 35 percent of $65,221 - four years of service
Step 5: 37 percent of $65,221 - eight years of service
Under the plan, all part-time County General Employees would earn $10.00 per hour, custodians would get a 2.158% pay increase, and the director of the Landfill would get a salary of $42,000 per year.
Landfill employees would get the following rates of pay:
Drivers with Commercial Driver Licenses (CDL):
•$13.00 per hour for 1 year of service
•$14.00 per hour for 3 years of service
•$15.00 per hour for 5 years of service
•$16.00 per hour for 7 years of service
Laborers would get the following rates of pay:
•$12.00 per hour for 1 year of service
•$13.00 per hour for 3 years of service
•$14.00 per hour for 5 years of service
•$15.00 per hour for 7 years of service
Convenience Center employees would get $8.50 per hour, and ambulance service employees would get a 4 percent raise, except for the director.
Copies of the budget will be given to the other members of the county commission, and a workshop will be scheduled soon for them to review it as a group without a vote. A public notice will then be published, and a vote to approve the spending plan will be taken at the commission’s regular monthly meeting on July 25.
