Hill County Compensation Board talks raises, tax inceases

Hill County Compensation Board passed a recommendation Thursday to offer Hill County elected officials a five percent cost of living pay increase and the board also set up future meetings to consider raising base pay as well.

The board had been discussing a potential change to the pay matrix of the county that would include yearly wages increased compressed into a shorter amount of time, which Hill County Commissioner Diane McLean said will help attract more people to the county.

Other members of the board, as well as county officials not on the board, criticized the plan, saying it didn’t really solve the problem they were facing, low pay.

Hill County Clerk and Recorder Sue Armstrong and Hill County Treasurer Sandy Brown, said they see the logic of the proposal, but said it is overly complicated and has the potential to adversely affect the people who’ve already been at the county for years and would see their yearly raises go away to be replaced by very small longevity raises.

The plan would change the one percent yearly raises employees get for their first 18 years of service to 2.5 percent raises they’d get over six years, which would be followed by longevity payments of $100 per month, a number that would go up by 50 every few years.

Armstrong and Brown, along with other officials, said the proposal may draw new people, but would cost them long-time employees who have extremely valuable institutional knowledge.

At this week’s meeting, which drew many more attendees than the previous one, County Road Department Supervisor Jim Bedwell said all that’s going to do is get the departments employees that will leave after six years, taking their experience with them.

Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson said the proposed $100 is just a placeholder number he would like to see raised, adding that numbers are not viable.

Armstrong again said they should adopt a more simple solution and raise base pay for everyone.

McLean and Peterson raised concerns about that idea.

Officials at the the meeting Thursday said employees should be getting paid closer to those in comparably sized counties, whose employees have similar work loads.

They said they and their employees get paid noticeably less than their colleagues in places like Park and Beaverhead counties, as well as those in smaller counties which don’t handle the workload they do.

Hill County Public Health Director Kim Berg said the money they offer starting nurses, who require a significant amount of education and often have substantial student loans to pay off, is not just low, but insulting.

“I just interviewed a nurse and got told it was a slap in the face,” Berg said.

Hill County Attorney Lacey Lincoln said she may have an alternative, albeit one that will doubtless require more study and work before it’s ready to be a formal proposal.

Lincoln presented an alternate pay matrix which more or less did what county officials were proposing, keeping the structure of raises mostly the same and instead raising base pay for county employees.

She said there were also a couple other changes to make the matrix a bit more “user friendly” and less confusing, but the big change is that it brings pay for employees up to a minimum of $15 an hour.

Lincoln’s proposal was received well by the group and discussion of the commissioner’s proposed change all but ceased entirely.

The group then began discussing the merits of Lincoln’s plan, one she said is still pretty rough and would surely require alterations and input from others to work potential problems out before it would be a proper proposal.

The discussion about the matter of paying for wage increases, which was McLean and Peterson’s main concern, was the biggest subject of conversation.

McLean said the only way to raise pay for employees is to eliminate positions to pay for those that remain.

Peterson said they can’t just raise taxes.

“We don’t get to say to the taxpayer, ‘You’re just going to pay more,’” he said.

“We can ask,” Lincoln said.

Officials said if the alternative is eliminating positions, and by extension reducing services, they should ask taxpayers on the ballot if they are willing to pay a bit more.

Peterson said he wasn’t against it, but even if the voters say yes, there would be a more-than-year-long delay before they would be able to implement the increase.

That suggestion didn’t seem to deter the officials at the meeting.

Peterson also said that, years ago, they tried to renew an existing tax for longer so they could pay for technology upgrades at the Hill County Detention Center and the voters rejected it.

Brown said that was partially a result of voter fatigue on a four-page-long ballot.

Others at the meeting said it was a result of the county not explaining the situation to voters properly.

Peterson blamed that partially on the Havre Daily News and New Media Broadcasters which operates local radio, which he claimed did not take him up on his request to be interviewed for stories about the tax.

Officials at the meeting said even if that is accurate, it is ultimately the job of the county to educate the public on matters like that.

Lincoln said she won’t pretend that raising base pay isn’t an expensive prospect, but given the area’s consistent growth, she thinks it is doable.

After some discussion the board voted 6-1 on a recommendation to give elected officials a five percent cost of living pay increase with a one percent longevity raise on top of that, a recommendation that will now go to the commission for approval.

Hill County Auditor Kathy Olson was the only board member to vote against the motion.

Armstrong, Lincoln and Peterson voted yes, along with Hill County Justice of the Peace Audrey Barger, Hill County Clerk of District Court Kathie Vigliotti and citizen representative Ken Kiemele.

McLean, who is not a member of the compensation board, said that while the board has discussed employee pay in general, they’re only actually allowed to raise elected official pay.

She said she brought her proposal to the board because the commission intends to mirror any changes made to elected official pay in employee pay as well, because they want to keep the two groups in sync, for both reasons of fairness and practicality.

Lincoln said that, without any need to raise taxes she, thinks a five percent increase is doable, but at this point raising base pay would be a significant stressor on county budgets and suggested the board meet early next year to start discussing possible base pay increases.

The board resolved to meet in April 2023 to start those conversations.

Another future conversation the board talked about having was that of longevity and possibly separating it from wages.

Under most circumstances employees who move from one department to another lose their longevity, which many county officials have argued is unfair, saying those employees are still working for the same employer and are just moving to another department that may work better for them, which they shouldn’t be punished for.

This has been a disussion at the county for the past few years and McLean and Olson have recently expressed a desire to reexamine the practice.