Pay raises may be limited (7/14/05)

As they prepare to head into budget season, members of the Jay County Council are hinting that raises for county employees, if given at all, won’t be overly generous.

Members of the council, who in June told department heads to ask for no more than 5 percent increases in salaries for 2006, want information on how much they could save with smaller raises.

Jay County Auditor Freda Corwin was asked by the council Wednesday to prepare the cost of granting 3 percent, and 3.44 percent raises during the budget approval process in August.

In the county’s 11-step pay plan, each step up is a 2.44 percent increase. Council members said they hope to be able to grant at least that step increase, with perhaps a small cost of living adjustment.

The COL increase recommended by the county’s contract human resource consultant was 1.7 percent.

Corwin said Wednesday she’s not yet sure how much will have to be trimmed from budget requests to reduce them to the maximum levy, or maximum amount the county is permitted to raise through property taxes.

Budget hearings will be held Aug. 9-10, beginning at 6 p.m. each night.

The council also voted to allow Jay County Commissioners to negotiate for the purchase of a building north of the courthouse that would be demolished and converted into a parking lot.

Council members Todd Wickey, Marilyn Coleman, George Meehan, Gerald Kirby, Judy LeMaster and Jim Zimmerman, who met in executive session with the commissioners before Wednesday evening’s meeting, approved a resolution that allows negotiations to continue.

The commissioners, who plan to use non-tax funds for the purchase, have said acquiring the building at 116-118 W. Walnut St. would ease sometimes-crowded parking conditions at the courthouse.

Also Wednesday, the council moved $460,000 into accounts for use in paving and maintaining county roads.

An additional appropriation of $300,000 for paving was OK’d from the cumulative capital development fund. Jay County Engineer Dan Watson said that those funds will allow an additional four or five miles of county roads to be paved this summer.

The highway department hopes to pave a total of 14 to 15 miles at a cost of about $1 million.

Also approved from cumulative capital development was $60,000 to pay a portion of the cost of an experimental dust control program. Under the program, nearly 110 miles of stone roads in the county were treated with a magnesium chloride dust control product, with the total cost of nearly $150,000 paid by the county.

Also approved was an additional appropriation of $100,000 from the cumulative bridge funds for use in replacement of culverts.

In other business, council members:

•Voted to accept a five-year strategic development plan for Jay County Development Corporation. A summary of the plan was outlined Wednesday by Bob Quadrozzi, executive director of JCDC.

“I think it’s a good plan ... we need some kind of road map to get (where we want to be),” Quadrozzi said.

“It’s a work in progress. I think it’s a good plan and I think we’re ahead to adopt it,” Kirby added.

Some of the key changes in the new plan include detailing community development goals and the adoption of a economic development strategy based on the motorsports and automotive industries.

•Approved the following additional appropriations: County General, auditor clerical, $5,000; Clerk Perpetuation Fund, clerk office equipment, $2,294; Pre-trial Diversion Fund, prosecutor operating supplies, $325; Highway General, highway equipment, $15,000; Wabash River Cleanout Fund, surveyor labor, $1,064.49; and Sheriff Drug Free Fund, sheriff’s department overtime, $1,000.

[[In-content Ad]]A few small changes just might give members of the Jay County Council the control they thought they had all along.

The council, which has had several showdowns with Jay/Portland Building and Planning over budgetary matters, approved several amendments to an inter-local agreement between the city and county.

The amendments give the councils of both the county and city what amounts to veto power over the building and planning budget and also require approval from both to spend money not in the original budget.

The changes will also have to be approved by Portland City Council, Jay County Commissioners and the Portland Board of Works.

Also approved by the council was the deletion of a paragraph that referred to the division of assets should either the county or city decide to withdraw from the joint agreement.

“What happens if one (council) doesn’t approve the budget?” council member Judy LeMaster asked council attorney George Lopez, who worked on the changes with officials from the city and county.

“Then you don’t have a budget,” was Lopez’s reply.

“To me, (the changes) clarify what we thought all along,” said council member Marilyn Coleman.

Councilman Gerald Kirby noted the changes, as presented, wouldn’t have solved a conflict in April over a transfer of funds to pay for new office furniture for the department’s new location in the Community Resource Center.

Jay County Auditor Freda Corwin, who serves as the council secretary, and council vice president Marilyn Coleman pointed out that state law already requires the council to approve all budgetary transfers, making it unnecessary to list that function in the inter-local agreement.

Although the department is a cooperative agreement between the city and county, the budget is run through the county. The city is billed and reimburses the county for half of the department’s expenses.

Kirby also noted that the changes also don’t address a source of controversy during a meeting in May with Portland Mayor Bruce Hosier and Bob McCreery, president of the board that governs day-to-day operations of the department.

During that meeting, McCreery said that the two employees of building and planning are not county employees.

The inter-local agreement says any department employees “shall be considered county employees.”

If approved by the other bodies, the amended agreement would be effective retroactive to July 15.