The Greene County supervisors showed signs of budget fatigue at their Jan. 24 meeting as they talked first about funding priorities and later about the compensation board’s recommendation for wage increases.
An earlier request from the Bell Tower Community Foundation that the county fund replacing the elevator in the bell tower, mentioned Thursday by supervisor Pete Bardole when he reported attending a meeting of the foundation, sparked conversation about the allocations the county makes for “community betterment.”
That includes not only the bell tower foundation, but service agencies like Elderserve, RSVP, the Greene County Early Learning Center, the Greene County Fair Association and others.
Board chair John Muir said he’d like to total up all the requests “and figure out if we’re getting any value out of the money we’re throwing at them.”
County auditor Jane Heun mentioned a recent conversation she had with the Webster County auditor about county funding for community agencies. According to Heun, counties are obliged by state code to help fund Extension and libraries. Funding other groups or projects is optional. She said Webster County quit funding community betterment groups eight years ago because the budget couldn’t sustain it.
Muir noted that Greene County sheriff’s deputies are 25 percent behind deputies (in wages) in comparable counties. He said that between fixing the elevator in the bell tower or having good deputies, the county has to have the deputies. ”There’s only so much money in the pot,” he said.
Frustration bubbled to the top again at the end of the meeting when Muir asked for discussion of the compensation board’s recommendation. If the supervisors don’t accept the compensation board’s recommendation as it was presented, they must decrease the recommended raises by the same percentage for every elected official.
Most years the compensation board recommends the same percentage increase for all officials. This year the board recommended dollar amounts that, when calculated as percentages, range from 2.96 percent to 8.6 percent. According to Muir, awarding increases on the larger end would put the county in an unsustainable position years down the road. But, to reduce that increase – in half, to 4.3 percent, for example – would require reducing the 2.96 percent raise (recommended for new county treasurer Katlynn Mechaelsen) to only 1.48 percent.
The fact that each elected official has a deputy whose salary is 85 percent of the official’s further complicates the issue.
If the recommendation were approved, Greene County elected officials would still be paid less than the state average for their peers but more than their peers in Calhoun County, which is comparable to Greene County.
Muir called the recommendation “a perfect plan to put us on a fire and leave us no way out.” He said later, “It’s a tough spot and I’m getting worn out by tough spots.”
Supervisor Tom Contner said he didn’t know what he thought of the recommendation.
Supervisor Mick Burkett said the supervisors may as well accept it because “we’re going to catch it either way.”
The supervisors have until Feb. 8 to consider their own increase (recommended to be $1,000 each – 3.6 percent) separately from the others’. Auditor Heun would like them to make a decision soon so she knows what figures to use in her budget calculations.
In FY17 and FY18, the supervisors gave themselves lower raises that other elected officials. “I thought we were being leaders, but no one followed,” Muir said.
