Julie McDonald Commentary: Raising Government Salaries During a Pandemic Unwise

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It doesn’t look good to raise public officials’ salaries during a national health pandemic with people losing their jobs and businesses shuttering their doors.

Despite the coronavirus pandemic with its significant economic repercussions, the Lewis County Salary Commission in a four-to-two vote in July gave a 10 percent salary increase to county commissioners and recommended other county elected officials receive the same. Voting in favor were Bob Berg, Donna Moody, Rick Kuykendall and Kelly Bell. Opposed were Martha Hunt and Eric Carlson.

Elected county officials today receive the following pay: commissioners, $82,000; sheriff, $122,520; assessor, auditor, treasurer and clerk, $75,000 each; and prosecutor, $165,167 (part of whose salary is reimbursed by the state at half a Superior Court judge’s $194,574 salary). A 10 percent raise would add $8,262 to the salaries of commissioners, $7,511 for the assessor, auditor, treasurer and clerk, and $16,517 for the prosecutor. With the raise, the prosecutor’s salary will have increased nearly 94 percent since 2003 when he earned $93,900. The sheriff’s salary is not set by the salary commission; rather, it’s tied to the undersheriff’s pay.

I know these elected officials work hard, but so do others in our county of 80,000, which has a median household income of $46,387 (according to datausa) or $50,216 in 2018 (according to the census bureau). And, unlike public employees who receive good benefits, many workers must set aside a healthy chunk of their income for expensive healthcare premiums.

I chuckled when I read Assessor Dianne Dorey’s comment: “I know the taxpayers of Lewis County are strapped, but I feel so am I.”

I imagine many county residents would feel anything but strapped with a salary of $75,000 a year plus thousands of dollars in benefits. Especially those 10.3 percent of residents who are unemployed.

Commissioner Edna Fund and Coroner Warren McLeod have objected vociferously to the proposed salary increase.

“It’s difficult for me to be talking about raises for people when I know Rose’s Furniture is closing, (Fairway Lanes) is closing, businesses out there are suffering with COVID-19,” Fund said.

McLeod said he didn’t want any raise when his deputy coroners obtain national certification, conduct in-depth investigations, and work nights, weekends and holidays “all for a whopping $15 an hour.”

“Also in these times of people out of work and the pandemic, it is criminal for elected officials to get a pay raise,” McLeod wrote in a Facebook post. “People are having trouble paying for rent, cannot go to work, suicides and drug overdoses are up and there is a move to raise the pay for elected officials?”

I agree. It makes little sense.

Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer told commissioners they must accept the salary commission’s recommended raises. But why can’t they just plug existing salaries into the budget and postpone implementation of any raises until we’re past the pandemic?

The salary commission discussed three options, given the pandemic: an 8 percent salary adjustment, a 10 percent salary adjustment or “postponing any decision pertaining to salary adjustments until at least the fall of this year and possibly into 2021 until more information as to Lewis County revenues and the general condition of the local economy is known.”

That would have been the wisest decision, but it’s not the one the commission selected.

Chair Bob Berg noted that when salary commission members discussed postponing the salary adjustments because of the coronavirus pandemic and economic uncertainty, only two people voted for that option.



“My own belief is that the membership felt that six years without a wage adjustment is a considerable amount of time given the data we looked at for similar positions in comparable counties, the CPI, cost-of-living adjustments given to other county employees, along with the percentage changes in median income for households in Lewis County,” he said. “All of that pointed to the 10 percent raise that we ultimately selected.”

Berg said the salary commission took into account the fact that county commissioners in 2018 hired Erik Martin as county manager, effectively reducing their day-to-day workload.

He also said nobody knows how long the coronavirus situation and economic uncertainty will last. He described the 10 percent increase as a cost-of-living adjustment, which would equate to an annual increase of about 1.4 percent from 2014 to 2021. The commission, comprised of volunteers, voted seven to one in August to submit its report to the county.

Eric Carlson, who cast the lone dissenting vote, noted that the salary commission put county commissioners in a no-win situation by increasing salaries by 10 percent during terrible economic times, according to the minutes.

“That decision leaves the county commissioners with two bad options,” the minutes quoted him as saying. “Bad option 1: take the salary commission’s recommendation to raise all other elected officials’ salaries by 10 percent during the COVID-19 emergency. Bad option 2: do not raise the other elected officials’ salaries to save money while at the same time having their own salaries increased by the salary commission.”

Citizens have 30 days from the time the salary commission announced its recommendation Aug. 11 to file a referendum challenging the proposed raises.

County commissioners have said if they must take the raises, they’ll donate the money to local charities. I know that’s true of Fund, who already donates a lot to local nonprofits, including museums, senior centers, United Way, Health and Hope, the Boy Scouts, the Gospel Mission and Love Inc.

The last time elected county officials received a raise was in 2014, when the salary commission recommended a 5 percent increase. Commissioners accepted the recommendation in a 2 to 1 vote, with Fund voting no.

In 2009, commissioners, who hadn’t had a raise for years, were given a 14 percent raise while other officials received 7 percent. In 2006, commissioners received 1 percent increases.

After six years, a cost-of-living increase isn’t out of line, but as they say, timing is everything.

 

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Julie McDonald, a personal historian from Toledo, may be reached at chaptersoflife1999@gmail.com.