Carbon County officials have split opinions on employee retention, pay and living within a budget to avoid raising taxes.

On Thursday, the county commissioners and president judge discussed several employee matters, with the discussion becoming heated at times.

Commissioner Chris Lukasevich questioned a leave of absence for personal reasons in the court system.

President Judge Roger Nanovic said that during an executive session, he was told he was allowed under the leave description to approve a leave for personal reasons.

“It’s within the court’s discretion,” Nanovic said.

He said the leave was so that the employee, who is a court stenographer, can “test the waters of another employment opportunity.”

Nanovic said he allowed this because Carbon County has had difficulty retaining stenographers.

The leave provides flexibility to see if she would like to remain with Carbon County.

The past practice in the county has been if a person resigns and then returns, they start as a new employee, losing all seniority and pay grades. This leave, Nanovic said, allows the employee to retain her current rates until she decides if she is going to take the position in another county.

“In the past when we lost stenographers, it has taken at times up to a year or more to get another court stenographer,” he said. This creates additional expense because the county needs to contract out. “The only detriment to the county to this is that it delays my posting by about 35 to 45 days. So to me, it’s a good thing for the court. ... This is not a position that can easily be filled if we lose her.”

Lukasevich said this action sets a precedent for other row offices to do similar requests.

He added that he thinks this is “doing a detriment to the best practices.”

“We’re opening Pandora’s box by the board of commissioners acknowledging this,” Lukasevich said.

Nanovic said that requests like this are looked at on a case-by-case basis so it should not set a precedent.

“There were mitigating and justifying circumstances to permit this in this instance,” he said. “I think it’s justified. I think it’s appropriate.”

Retention of employees

Commissioners’ Chairman Wayne Nothstein said the county is working in “extreme times in the retention and getting good, qualified employees.”

“I think we have to take every avenue that we have to try and retain a lot of our employees,” he said. “We have already lost how many employees this year and it’s not all funds. A lot of it has been the way they have been treated by someone here in this office.”

Nothstein said that at least four people have left because of the way employees are treated.

“I think we have to step back and really look at what we are doing to our employees,” he said, pointing out that a salary board action set the purchasing manager salary at $20.47 per hour when the former purchasing manager was paid less. “Then we wonder why we have so many people leaving. We have had at least five or six department heads that left because of the way they were treated, being treated unfairly by the salary board, by the commissioners and we have got to turn the tables on the exodus of our employees.”

Lukasevich questioned Nothstein, pointing out that he just voted in favor of the salary set for the new purchasing manager.

Nothstein said he did, but reminded his colleague that he was also the one who made a motion in January for a higher salary increase for the former purchasing manager and Lukasevich voted no.

Lukasevich said that the January motion was “contrary to the salary study recommendation” and that the majority of the commissioners felt that the recommendations should have been followed instead.

Nothstein shot back that the salary study’s objective was to “attract and retain qualified employees” and it has had negative effects on some of the departments.

Lukasevich said that the people who were hired to fill the vacancies created by various resignations are highly qualified.

“I think we’ve done very well attracting and hiring highly qualified individuals.”

“I think we could do a lot better,” Nothstein said.

Accusations of mistreatment

Later in the meeting, Nothstein said that it was Lukasevich’s treatment of employees, specifically the now former IT director, who resigned after being in the position one month, that was also causing good people to leave.

Commissioner Rocky Ahner also weighed in, saying that the county is abusing the employees by not paying them for overtime and for what they are worth.

“We got to start helping people out a little bit better and paying them for the time that they’re here.”

However, Ahner also said that the county must live within the budget that has been set and the salary study was the starting point for fixing salaries.

Ahner and Lukasevich both voted against any additional raises over and above what the county suggested to department heads in December. Nothstein and Controller Mark Sverchek voted in favor of several additional increases for certain positions in January, but the increases were rolled back following the meeting by the commissioners in a 2-1 vote with Nothstein casting the sole no vote.