Possible changes will get further review

The classification of county employees approved for a 4-percent wage increase in 2017 will be further reviewed.
Jay County Personnel Committee decided Monday to have department heads from the retirement center, highway department and surveyor’s office reevaluate job descriptions for employees awarded salary bumps by Jay County Council during a budget review earlier this month.
The employees include 13 highway truck drivers, four equipment operators in the surveyor’s office and two employees from the retirement center, whose wages were raised in an effort to bring them closer to figures from a previous pay plan survey completed by consulting firm Waggoner, Irwin, Scheele and Associates.
The personnel committee met Monday in response to concerns issued Wednesday to Jay County Council by retirement center assistant director Tammy Davis, who said she disagreed with the increase given to a maintenance worker and cook/housekeeper supervisor at the center and questioned whether the two employees should be classified the same as truck drivers.
“Our question is how can we either put the truck drivers in a different classification or put the two people from the retirement center in a different classification,” committee member Doug Inman said at the beginning of Monday’s meeting.
Inman had suggested at Wednesday’s council meeting the possibility of putting truck drivers in their own stand-alone class. However, Addie Rooker, a senior consultant with Waggoner, Irwin, Scheele, shot down that idea saying it could cause a “ripple effect.”
“To just pull one out is going to cause some pay equity issues, later down the road. It looks at some internal rank issues within the highway department, possible pay compression, and these are things we are trying to avoid,” said Rooker, who will review the job descriptions with the department heads.

Committee members also discussed whether truck drivers could be moved into higher class, but that would require review.
“Well, you can’t make any classification changes if there are no changes to the job description,” Rooker told committee members Mike Leonhard, Gary Theurer and Inman. “So, it would have to come forward to the committee with revisions to be looked at and to be factored.”
Highway department Ken Wellman said he currently doesn’t seen any revisions that can be made.
“Our job descriptions are what they are. I can’t make stuff up that we don’t do,” he said.
He added, however, that his department has seen a high turnover in drivers because of pay, which is currently $13.59 per hour and will bump up to $14.13 as result of the 4-percent increase.
“You look around at surrounding counties. I don’t know how we are classified in this form here compared to everybody else,” Wellman said. “I mean, we do the same thing every other highway truck driver in every other surrounding or adjoining county does and we’re $3 below everybody.”
Meanwhile, Davis said she doesn’t believes the job description of the maintenance worker is accurate and that it needs to be reviewed. In her remarks to council Wednesday, she described the role as a more of a “groundkeeper.”
She indicated Monday the description may be too expansive for the current role.
While not making formal recommendations, the committee also suggested Monday that the adoption of 2017 salary ordinance be delayed until the issues surrounding the classification are resolved and that the 4-percent raises be kept intact unless changes are made.
Rooker told the committee it’ll probably take around a month to review the descriptions with the department heads.