Board holds discussion on proposed county pay scale

Hill County officials discussed a proposed change in county employee pay at a meeting of the County Compensation Board Wednesday morning, with county officials expressing a number of concerns about the change proposed by the Hill County Commission.

Commissioner Diane McLean said, in an effort to attract more personnel and address complaints regarding the low pay offered at the county, she proposed a new plan that would compress yearly wage increases into a smaller time frame, letting new employees start at higher pay and progress through regular raises more quickly.

McLean said this attempt to “front load” compensation would consist of a 2.5 percent raise every year for six years, followed by another $100 a year for three years, increasing another $50 every few years.

She said the current model doesn’t factor in cost-of-living increases but could in the future as the proposal is not set in stone.

While many county officials said they understood the logic behind this proposed change and appreciate what the commission is trying to do, they expressed concerns over the plan.

Hill County Attorney Lacey Lincoln said the fact that the model doesn’t include cost of living increases, nor if those would apply to elected officials as well as employees, was concerning and should be addressed before the plan is considered for adoption.

The subject of elected official pay was discussed at the meeting, with McLean arguing that if employee pay is raised, pay for elected officials should be raised as well, so they avoid having elected officials being paid less than other county employees, which she feared would discourage people from running.

There was some discussion among county officials about how elected official pay should be handled and whether longevity should be offered considering the different standards and expectations there are for elected officials.

Lincoln said normal employees are expected to be rewarded with higher and higher pay as they go on because as they accumulate experience and get better at their jobs they become more and more valuable, while elected officials are expected to know how to do their jobs from the beginning and their accumulation of experience is not valued the same way by many.

She said she obviously thinks the perception is misplaced, as every elected official learns as they go and becomes more adept as time goes on, but that perception does guide decisions about compensation for those officials.

Hill County Clerk and Recorder Sue Armstrong also said she disagrees with the perception and believes elected officials should get longevity pay.

Armstrong expressed a number of concerns about the proposed change, but one of her main issues was that this was the first time she’d heard details about the proposal.

As the person who handles the county’s budget and works with their pay matrix, she said, she should have been involved in these discussions, and asked to be many times.

She asked how long these discussions had been going on, to which McLean said, “for a while, Sue.”

When pressed about why Armstrong wasn’t involved in the conversations at all, McLean said it seemed like Armstrong was too busy to deal with it.

“We try to keep the group small so that we can actually get something done … . I apologize that we can’t involve everybody in every single consideration,” she added.

Armstrong said she asked to be part of the conversations and wondered why she wasn’t.

McLean shrugged her shoulders.

“That’s a really good answer,” Armstrong said.

McLean said she is here now, which Armstrong said is a little late.

“It’s never too late,” Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson said.

“Yes it is,” Armstrong said.

“No it isn’t,” Peterson said.

After the argument about the way the proposed change has been handled, Armstrong and Hill County Justice of the Peace Audrey Barger said the proposed change, while not entirely meritless, seems overly complicated when it doesn’t need to be.

They asked why the county doesn’t keep their current pay matrix and just raise base pay.

Why reinvent the wheel? Barger asked.

Barger and Armstrong agreed that the matter of longevity raises does need to be looked at because under current policy longevity resets if an employee moves from one department to another, which county officials and employees have long argued is unfair and senseless, as they would still be working for the same employer.

McLean agreed that that situation needs to be rectified.

Barger and Armstrong also said that by compressing yearly raises so drastically, they would run into a situation where pay for new employees would quickly surpass what employees who’ve already been there for years are getting.

Barger said that, given how difficult staffing is at the moment, they can’t afford to lose the experienced people they already have, which she fears this might lead to given how unfair it seems.

Armstrong and said another $100 a year for people with seven years of experience is practically nothing, less than $10 a month.

Peterson encouraged officials to study the proposed change and recommend changes but also realize what they decide to do has to be sustainable, otherwise they’ll have to cut staff and services or ask the public for more tax money.

Peterson said assumptions seem to be being made that the county can pay for some of the ideas being proposed, and he asked Armstrong and Hill County Treasurer Sandy Brown for numbers on what kind of money the county has to work with.

Armstrong said he already has those numbers, as they are given to the commission when budget information is presented to them.

The board eventually determined that they wouldn’t be able to make any kind of decision at this meeting.