Commission approves raises for Hill County sheriff personnel

The Hill County Commission, with commissioners Mark Peterson and Jake Strissel attending remotely by phone, approved a significant raise for the Hill County Sheriff’s Office at their weekly business meeting Thursday, drawing criticism from other county officials who felt it was unfair that their departments were not being treated similarly.

The resolution passed by the commission provides an increase to sheriff’s office employees, some up to 13.7 percent, though Hill County Commissioner Diane McLean said the calculation is slightly different depending on what position they’re talking about.

Hill County Treasurer Sandy Brown said this significant increase is insulting to the rest of the county’s employees who saw significantly lower wage increases of 5 percent, a 5 percent that had to be fought for.

Earlier in the year the commission, in an effort to attract new workers proposed a new compensation 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.

Many officials, while understanding the motive behind the proposal, said it means that long-time employees would miss out on raises as a result of this change and would see new employees quickly surpass them in pay, which they said is unfair.

After multiple meetings it was eventually decided that the county would just raise base pay as employees had been requesting for years, but amid those discussions was the concern, brought up by the commission, that the county simply cannot afford to raise base pay as substantially as employees want.

The county’s low pay has been a subject of criticism from employees and officials for the last few years and the argument that the county cannot afford such a thing has been the primary argument against it.

Brown said to go through all of those meetings and discussion only to now hear that the county has the money to give a massive raise to one department over all the others sends a message to the employees of Hill County, one that tells them just how little they are worth in the eyes of the commission.

Hill County Clerk and Recorder Sue Armstrong agreed, saying that the sheriff’s department is getting well over twice what everyone else is.

None of the commissioners responded to these comments and the resolution was passed unanimously.

The sheriff’s office has been short-staffed, especially in the Hill County Detention Center, with Sheriff Jamieson Ross saying it is causing problems covering shifts.

Another subject at the meeting which caused tension was the issue of an amended plat for Hill County Resident Randy Anderson, one that corrected mistakes in an already-passed plat and one that initiated a protracted argument between officials and Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson.

The amended platt shortens an easement and corrects some mistakenly labeled streets, but Peterson said he was concerned about how the plat would be affected by zoning regulation.

Deputy Hill County Clerk and Recorder Lexis Dixon, who is unopposed in the race for county clerk and recorder, said she’s not an authority on zoning regulations, but the the people at the county who are have already signed off on the plat so it shouldn’t be a concern, especially since zoning wasn’t a factor in the original plat that was passed.

Despite this, Peterson said he wanted to meet with the relevant departments, departments that Dixon said have already looked at and signed off on it.

She asked why, if zoning was a concern, it wasn’t brought up when the original survey was done, as the survey this plat is based on is no different from the one the previous one was based on.

She said dragging this out for longer than it needs to be is only going to serve to annoy people who are already irritated that they need to do an amended plat because of mistakes that were not their fault.

However, Peterson wasn’t satisfied and the matter was tabled.

After the commission dealt with the rest of the meeting Hill County Clerk and Recorder Sue Armstrong, who had stepped out for much of the discussion about the plat, brought it back up asking why it had been tabled, since Peterson’s concern about zoning has nothing to do with the plat.

Peterson says he knows of an issue where a plat amendment was made that cost a property owner $40,000 because of a zoning violation, but Armstrong, like Dixon, said zoning is not a factor in this particular instance so there was no reason to table the matter.

Clay Vincent of the Hill County Sanitarians then entered the office and went into detail about the plat, as he was one of the people who’s looked at it before it was sent to the commission.

Vincent went into more detail on specific aspects of the plat, but echoed what Dixon and Armstrong said regarding zoning, saying there’s no reason not to approve it.

He asked Peterson if he understood the explanation, but Peterson said no and chastised those present for talking too much.

“No Clay, it don’t,” he said. “I’ve been trying to ask the question and everyone wants to talk, but nobody wants to listen.”

Peterson yet again brought up his concerns about zoning, but eventually McLean asked to have the commission vote to take the matter off the table, thanking Vincent for his input.

The commission voted unanimously to bring the issue back to the table.

Hill County Commissioner Jake Strissel said it doesn’t sound like there is an issue and the commission then voted 2-0 to approve the plat, with Peterson abstaining.

Before the end of the meeting Brown brought up an issue of her own, asking about where the commission was at in terms of bringing in a contractor to make alterations to her department’s office.

McLean said she should come back and ask all the commissioners, but Brown said Peterson and Strissel were attending on the phone.

McLean said she doesn’t know if it’s the commission’s job to do that for Brown, who said the commission had already agreed to do it.

McLean said she would need to look at her notes to see if that is true or not.

During the meeting the commission also voted unanimously to appoint Vicky Rae Clouse to the H. Earl Clack Memorial Museum Board and Alisha DeRosa to the Great Northern Fair Board.