The Greene County compensation board will recommend to the county board of supervisors a 3 percent pay increase for county elected officials for fiscal year 2015. The compensation board met Monday morning and heard brief presentations from the various officials. County sheriff Steve Haupert, treasurer Donna Lawson, recorder Marcia Tasler, auditor Jane Heun and attorney Nicola Martino all requested the 3 percent increase.
Supervisor Tom Contner was asked by the compensation board to speak on behalf of the supervisors, as he was the only supervisor present at the time. Contner said he could not speak for all the supervisors and that he does not personally want a pay increase. (Contner has repeated that every year he has been in office.) “The rest duly deserve something, though,” he said about an increase for the other four supervisors.
New three-year contracts with the unions representing the county secondary roads employees and the sheriff’s office employees were cited. Those contracts call for a 3 percent wage increase in the first year and 2.5 percent increases in the second and third years of the contract.
The board of supervisors can accept or decrease the recommended raise, but a decrease must be in the same amount for every official. The supervisors can consider their own wage increase separately from that of the other officials.
Bill Raney, a former county supervisor, served as chair of the compensation board. “It’s our job to try to put a salary before the board of supervisors for them to approve that recognizes the hard work these people do here but at the same time be responsible to the taxpayers of the county,” Raney said in introductory comments.
If the supervisors approve a 3 percent wage increase, salaries would be as follows (current salary listed first): supervisors (at each), $25,818 to $26,593; attorney, $81,106 to $83,539; auditor, $50,751 to $52,274; recorder, $49,819 to $51,314; sheriff, $65,572 to $67,539; and treasurer, $50,293 to $52,451.
All elected officials are eligible for employee benefits, including health insurance.
The salary of each elected official’s chief deputy is a percentage of the elected official’s salary. The officials set the pay scale for other employees, general in keeping with the union contracts in place.
Greene County elected officials received 3 percent pay increases in 2013, 2012, 2010 and 2009, and a 2 percent increase in 2011.
Members of the compensation board and the elected official who appointed them are Raney, auditor; David Morain and Craig Fillman, supervisors; Tom Heater, attorney; Mary Jane Fields, sheriff; Denise O’Brien Van, treasurer; and Aaron Schroeder, recorder.
