Lewis County Human Resource Administrator Archie Smith, left, addresses county commissioners and other elected officials about creating a citizen salary commission.
A new panel of Lewis County citizens is set to be created, with 10 members selected for the purpose of determining salaries for county commissioners and other elected officials in county government.
“We all ran for this office, and we knew what the salary was,” county commissioner Edna Fund said, just before she and her colleagues voted to adopt the salary commission. “Folks don’t like to hear that, but I still feel that way. However, putting an independent salary commission together takes us out of this loop of trying to evaluate this. Let’s have some independent folks.”
County commissioners have been discussing the salary issue since they were approached by an undisclosed elected official or officials, who noted that some county leaders have not had raises in awhile. While commissioners were initially hesitant to address the issue, given the county’s budget struggles, they finally opted to move forward on the salary question while taking themselves out of the equation.
Per state law, the salary commission will be made up of 10 members, four of whom must represent certain disciplines — business, personnel management, labor and law. The other six will be chosen in a random lottery of all registered voters in the county. The county has not had a salary commission in place since 2014, and none of the previous members will be eligible to retain their positions.
“A lot of this is gonna be a work in progress as we move forward,” said county commissioner Bobby Jackson. “We haven’t had this in place for some time.”
The citizen panel, once created, will set the salaries for county commissioners, as well as recommending salary levels for the county clerk, auditor, treasurer and coroner. County commissioners are officially responsible for setting the salaries of those other officials, but Human Resource administrator Archie Smith said it is inadvisable to ignore the recommendations of the salary commission. Years ago, commissioners opted not to follow the salary panel’s advice, which led to backlash, as the citizens felt their time had been wasted.
“It was not well-received, to put it lightly,” Smith said. “It could have been done a lot better.”
County assessor Dianne Dorey, clerk Scott Tinney and treasurer Arny Davis all attended the Tuesday meeting on the salary issue. Dorey asked how long it would be before the salary commission is officially formed. The best estimate was several months, as it may take several mailings to recruit enough citizens from the random lottery who are interested in joining the panel.
County commissioners also intend to recruit for the four members of the panel they get to choose, and they said they plan to cast a wide net, encouraging the public to apply.
“I would not want us to be accused of selecting our friends,” Fund said. “To have folks who want to volunteer, we can get the word out — put your applications in.”
When county commissioners discussed the issue last month, a tense, hour-long meeting produced no agreement, as Jackson said he was “ambivalent” about the salary commission and took issue with salary decisions in the past. Tuesday proved different, as a congenial meeting of about 15 minutes ended with a unanimous vote.
Jackson said he wanted the salary commission to be a regular functioning body, not a group that commissioners only call together on an irregular basis.
“It needs to be a fully working commission,” he said. “It needs to have a chairman of the board and they need to meet on whatever basis they’re supposed to meet. In the past, the (salary commission) has not met on a regular basis. … If we’re gonna go through this process and establish this board, I want the people who are willing to step up and be part of a board to have something to do.”
In the unusual circumstance that the salary commission would opt to lower the salary of an official, that change would not take place until the next term.
