Some county raises approved

Some county employees will get raises after all.
Bucking the recommendation of the county budget committee, Jay County Council approved raises Wednesday evening for about two-dozen employees.
Two department heads, a deputy, an administrative assistant, highway department truck drivers and six others who share the same job classification will get pay bumps in 2017.
Jay/Portland Building and Planning director John Hemmelgarn will receive a 6 percent raise in 2017, bringing his salary up to $49,573.23.
Administrative assistant Patti McLaughlin will get a raise of 3 percent.
Those figures were decided by a joint city-county board, which oversees the department and consists of two representatives from each entity and a citizen member.
Jay County Commissioners president and board member Faron Parr went before council, which unanimously approved the raises, to advocate for the salary bumps.
Funding for the department is split 50-50 with the City of Portland, Hemmelgarn and McLaughlin are considered county employees, which county attorney Bill Hinkle said is mainly for benefit purposes.
Parr cited future fees and an increased workload to make his case.
Documents he submitted to council estimate $147,500 in permit fees from the Bluff Point Wind Energy Center slated to be built in southern Jay County in 2017 and show an increase in permits issued this year.
“Next year, with the permit increase and we’ve raised our rates, we’ll probably bring twice what that department costs to operate,” Parr told council members Mike Leonhard, Gary Theurer, Ted Champ, Bob Vance, Mike Rockwell, Jeanne Houchins and Cindy Newton.
Parr highlighted an additional form that showed the department’s unused balance has risen from $3,490.37 in 2000 to $17,847.66 in 2015.
“This is a big bang for your buck, for the city and county,” he said. “I don’t think we are overpaying (John) by any means.”
Additionally, council approved a 4 percent salary increase for 13 highway department truck drivers and six other employees with the same job classification, in an effort to bring their wages closer to figures from a previous pay plan survey completed by consulting firm Waggoner, Irwin, Scheele and Associates.
Theurer first suggested the raise for truck drivers, whose salaries were originally set around $26,600 in the budget, when reviewing the highway department fund with superintendent Ken Wellman.
“That’s the issue I have with freezing wages across the board. His budget is OK,” Theurer said, highlighting the department’s budget is healthier than the county’s general fund.
However, auditor Anna Culy noted raising truck driver wages would mean needing raises for those with the same classification, which includes four surveyor department employees and two employees at the retirement center, all paid out of the county’s general fund.
A motion to approve the raises initially failed, with Theurer and Houchins in favor.
After the vote, Champ asked how much the raises would affect the general fund.
“To vote without that information, I wasn’t prepared to do that,” later said Champ, bringing the issue back up.
During that discussion, commissioner Doug Inman advocated for raises, noting the general fund had been loosened up by $30,000 with cuts to commissioner and county council member pay.
A second vote passed, with Vance and Newton opposed.
Newton argued that cuts should be made in departments to allow raises for employees in other classifications that are deserving, while Houchins called for an active personnel committee that could review classification pay and make recommendations.
Meanwhile, council approved raises for veterans’ service officer Cliff Moser and a deputy in the auditor’s officer, allowing her pay to match her classification.
Moser’s salary will jump to $21,200.88 from $16,200.88, a 31 percent raise. He requested a salary of $25,989, but council settled on a $5,000 boost.
Moser said an average of three new veterans are coming to his office per week and he is working about 28 to 30 hours per week, whereas he is allotted 18 per week in his role.
“When you have that many vets coming in Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, you just don’t have time to file paperwork. You don’t have time,” he said of the extra hours.
In March, council approved a part-time position to work an additional 15 hours in the office.
However, Moser said the ideal situation would be to have his position be full time with part-time help.
“If you’re going to do the job and try to do the job right, and take care of vets and bring money back into the county, that’s what you have to do,” he said.
Council denied a request Wednesday from surveyor Brad Daniels, who sought an increase for his department’s first deputy.
First deputy pay is calculated off department head salary, and Daniels is the lowest paid full-time elected official in the county.
Currently, Daniels’ pay is divided up between his salary and additional wages for cornerstones and drainage miles.
“I’m not complaining about mine. I would just like to have my cornerstone and ditch miles added to my salary to make it all salary, which you have the authority to do because half the counties in this state, some pay miles, some of them don’t,” Daniels said Tuesday.
Combining the three would bring Daniels’ salary to $44,339.04 from $38,647.70, which in turn would raise the first deputy’s salary to $36,054.28 from $31,785.84.
On Tuesday, Rockwell said that while he appreciated Daniels “going to bat” for his employee, he noted the county is trying to watch its dollars and that Daniels was asking for an increase of nearly $5,000.
Council will hold a public hearing and first reading of the 2017 budget at 6 p.m. Sept. 21.