Committee split on pay raises for elected officials
by Brent Shrum, Kootenai Valley Record
August 13, 2009
An advisory committee voted unanimously last week to recommend a token 1 cent per hour raise to Lincoln County elected officials but was sharply divided in a decision to include a 1 percent longevity increase.
Set up in accordance with state law, the board includes the three commissioners – Konzen, Marianne Roose and Tony Berget – Sheriff Daryl Anderson, Clerk and Recorder Tammy Lauer, Treasurer Nancy Higgins, and County Attorney Bernie Cassidy along with appointed citizen representatives Jeff Gruber and Terry Crooks of Libby, Bonnie Larson and Darren Coldwell of Troy and Steve Newman of Eureka.
While the board is charged only with making recommendations on salaries for elected officials, county policy, state law and union contracts blur the lines in some places. County policy is to grant pay raises and/or cost of living allowances to employees when elected officials’ salaries go up. Montana law requires salaries for sheriff’s deputies to be set as a percentage of the sheriff’s salary, which in turn is tied to the salaries of other elected officials. And a three-year union contract signed with the deputies in 2008 calls for a 2.5 percent pay raise along with 1 percent longevity increases and a COLA, set this year at 3.8 percent.
This spring, the unionized employees of the sheriff’s office rejected a request from the county commissioners to forego the pay raise until economic times improve.
"Personally, I don’t know why the hell we ever entered into a three-year contract," Anderson said.
"It was the heat of the moment," Lauer responded. "They were going to strike the next day."
Following Missoula County’s lead, the committee recommended that elected officials receive a 1 cent per hour raise to allow longevity increases for sheriff’s deputies to kick in. Under state law, the deputies don’t get a longevity increase when the sheriff’s salary is frozen.
The motion for the token raise passed unanimously, but committee members disagreed when the subject of a 1 percent longevity increase for elected officials was brought up. Higgins said she and some other officials were surprised when the longevity increase was added to their pay last year.
"We got 1 percent more than everybody else did last year," she said.
A lot of other counties in the state don’t give longevity increases to elected officials, Higgins said.
Newman said he was opposed to granting the longevity increase and felt the initial vote on the 1 cent per hour raise meant that was the only extra pay elected officials should get this year.
"In my mind, that is not what I voted for," Newman said of the longevity increase.
A motion to grant the longevity increase passed by a 6-5 vote, with Roose, Konzen, Coldwell, Crooks, Anderson and Lauer voting in favor and Higgins, Newman, Berget, Gruber and Larson voting against. Cassidy was not present.
A final decision on elected officials’ salaries, along with pay for county employees, will be made by the county commissioners.
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Editor’s Note: See the August 11, 2009 edition of the Kootenai Valley Record for the printed version of this story. The Kootenai Valley Record publishes once a week, on Tuesdays, in Libby, Montana. They are a locally owned community newspaper, located at 403 Mineral Avenue in Libby. For in-county and out-of-county subscription information, call 406-293-2424, or e-mail kvrecord@gmail.com.
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