The air inside the Carbon County Commissioners meeting room on Thursday was tense as county row officers and salary board members voiced their opinions over several requests for 6% salary hikes for most county departments, effective Sept. 1.

During the monthly salary board meeting, row officers from courts, the clerk of courts, controller, district attorney, prothonotary, public defender, recorder of deeds, register of wills, treasurer and sheriff approached the board, asking for the mid-year salary increases for their employees.

“This is somewhat unusual at this time of year to do this,” said President Judge Roger Nanovic, who made the request for 48 employees under the courts jurisdiction. “We have very hardworking, dedicated employees in the court and I think we do throughout the county. Right now, they’re struggling and I hope and believe the commissioners recognize this as well. We’re dealing with difficult financial times. The rate of inflation recently, I believe, was indicated to be 9.1 ... I think it’s important to remain competitive, to retain and recruit employees. ... I think it’s important that this not be delayed longer (as they wait for the salary study.)”

Not the right way to fix the problem

Commissioner Rocky Ahner has voiced the need for better pay for the county employees over the last year, especially those making under $15 an hour. But on Thursday, he discussed the across-the-board 6% increase as the wrong solution.

“This doesn’t solve our problem of hiring and retaining employees or make it fair to everyone throughout the salary scale,” Ahner said. “In fact, it makes it worse by putting the top and bottom farther apart.”

He said a 6% increase for an employee making $11.38 is only 69 cents, bringing them to an hourly wage of $12.07; while an employee making $41.77 gets a $2.54 hike, bringing their hourly wage to $44.31.

This mid-year increase for these employees would also result in an essentially half-mill tax hike for taxpayers for 2023 due to the added expense not budgeted for during the budget process.

Ahner pointed out that the increase totaled approximately $213,000 annually.

“That means that a house assessed at $75,000 would pay approximately $40 more,” he said.

Rocky said that he feels the row officers are going about this the wrong way and said he would be open to looking at all positions to fix the salaries correctly for the January annual meeting.

“I’m open to all offices coming in at budget time with a rational budget request on salaries. We could have the counties financial advisor give the row officers a dollar amount per office and let them decide where the money goes. If the salary study comes back in time we could compare both to make a rational decision on behalf of the employees and taxpayer,” he said. “ ... I’m very conservative and not willing to throw taxpayers money anywhere to contribute to the problem.”

Impacts to the county

Commissioner Chris Lukasevich also questioned the moves, asking each department what the current budgeted amount of salaries and the financial impact of the increases.

Nanovic said that the impact if the motions don’t pass would be “losing qualified employees, we can’t retain them. It’s causing pressure on other employees and we have an extremely difficult morale problem in this county.”

Both Lukasevich and Ahner said they felt there was a hidden agenda behind the motions.

Lukasevich said that this move is “fiscally irresponsible to allocate funds that actually do not exist.”

He asked what consideration the county is having on the 14,000 senior citizens who already have difficulty paying property tax bills and the 7,100 county residents living in poverty.

He also asked Nanovic if the courts would be prepared to cease operations for an amount of time to help cover the deficit the salary increases would cause?

Nanovic shot back that there are three separate branches of government and the county “has an obligation to fund the court to make sure the courts can operate.”

“If the county defaults on this constitutional obligation, there can be repercussions,” Nanovic said. “So no, the court is not going to cease. The court has a constitutional obligation to remain in place to be open to the public to hear cases and to decide cases.”

“The court has an obligation to operate within its budget,” Lukasevich responded. “What it is trying to do now is exceed its approved budget amount.”

“No, it’s trying to take into account extraordinary circumstances, which were not anticipated at the time the budget was originally set,” Nanovic said.

Mismanagement allegations

Lukasevich, holding a personal check for part of his salary, then asked all row officers if they would put their money where their mouths are and take a 10% salary cut for the remainder of the year to help offset this unbudgeted increase.

Only Register of Wills Jean Papay responded, saying she would, before saying the board has been mismanaging funds and the employees are paying for it.

“What have you done to bring industries in here to help offset taxes? What have you done to build our county for the better?” Papay asked. “When it comes to our employees, it is grandstanding that they’re not worth the 6% to at least have a livable expense to that they can go out and live. ... You bash our employees and say they are not worth the money.”

Ahner said that he does appreciate the employees, but feels the way this is being handled will not solve the problem.

“I’m looking to get the people money,” Ahner said, noting that there are several people in the county who are paid significantly lower than they are worth. “...You’re presenting a tax increase. If that’s what’s presented, let’s fix this problem. You think these people that are paid $12 an hour, they’re going to stay on the Titanic? They’re going to jump ship before it sinks. And you keep going like this and get people further apart? You’re going to keep losing people and that’s my point.”

He said that this across the board increase will only make the problem worse in the long run.

Differing opinions

Commissioners’ Chairman Wayne Nothstein parted with his colleagues thoughts, saying that without the county employees, the county cannot provide the services to help those in poverty and the senior citizens.

“How can we continue to conduct business in our courts, our Children and Youth, and caseworkers and dispatchers,” he said. “We’re living in difficult times and sometimes have drastic times and we have to take drastic measures to maintain our workforce ... and that comes with a cost.”

Nothstein said he had tried to warn them that approving some salary increases for an office would create problems and not adding a small tax increase last year to offset salaries would come back to bite them.

“We have to provide services and we need to move on,” he said. “...Last month, when that motion was made, it created a problem and I tried to warn you.”

Ahner shot back, saying that Nothstein wasn’t comparing apples to apples because the previous motion was for someone to get a raise and that was one case.

“I thought it should be fair to everybody and now I’m put out because it is my fault, Wayne?” Ahner said. “You know what, you started this stuff here. You’ve been here for 20 years and the wages are still $11 or $12 an hour.”

Is it legal?

Lukasevich asked the county solicitor Robert S. Frycklund if it was even legal for the county to commit funds in excess of what has been budgeted for that year.

He was told it was not based on the solicitor’s understanding of the county code.

Following the heated discussion, the board voted 3-2 to approve some increases, with Lukasevich and Ahner voting no, while Nanovic, Controller Mark Sverchek and Nothstein voting yes.

This motion set the stage for clashes with most of the other row officers, who also spoke about the need and outlined the effects of not approving the requests.

District Attorney Michael Greek said he had previously had his own salary study completed for his department against other district attorney offices of the same size, as well as counties with the same caseloads as Carbon. He said his request at the time had been shot down by the board so he now felt a standard hike across the board increase was needed.

“I’m sitting in an office that I can’t work out of. I have disgruntled employees so I am joining with the rest of the county,” he said. “...We are in a unique situation, given the cost of living increase that is going on currently; and to keep our employees happy with this. ... If I had been granted those other increases that I saw in terms of grading and salaries, I might not have been here today.”

Final approvals

In the end, increases for employees district attorney’s office, prothonotary’s office, public defender’s office, recorder of deeds’ office, register of wills office, treasurer’s office and sheriff’s office were approved 3-2, with the row officer breaking the tie in those votes.

The clerk of courts request motion died for lack of a second, while the controller’s office and motion under the jurisdiction of the board of commissioners both failed after being tied 2-2 with Sverchek and Nothstein casting yes votes, and Lukasevich and Ahner voting no.

The meeting was recessed until next Thursday because Lukasevich realized that the coroner’s office, as well as court tipstaff were not included in any motions.

Ahner said at the end of the meeting that his goal is to now focus on determining proper increases for the employees under the commissioners’ jurisdiction for the January annual salary board meeting.

Clerk to talk to lawyer over increase snub