Carbon County officials are looking to restructure its departments in hopes of paying the staff in the positions a pay closer to neighboring counties.

On Thursday, the county salary board approved five motions to the positions within the commissioners’ office. The salary board is made up of the three commissioners, as well as the county controller.

Four of the motions changed the rates of the assistant chief clerk/office manager, raising the salary $2.03 per hour; the executive secretary/open records officer, $1.49 per hour; the fiscal/legal assistant, $1.46 per hour; and the secretary III position, $1.14 per hour.

The board also abolished the position of administrative assistant.

Commissioners’ Chairman Michael Sofranko said that the board and the county administrator, worked hard on these changes to both save money for the taxpayers, while providing better pay for the department.

“We were able to bring some pays more in line with where they should be,” he said. “We will continue to work on bringing those pays up as we continue to consolidate and move things around as we can consolidate across the county.”

Sofranko added that before the commissioners asked other departments to look at its staffing, the board felt that its department should be first restructured to see if it was possible.

Commissioner Rocky Ahner said that with the restructuring, the county’s cost savings will be $21,676.20 and stressed that this restructuring isn’t eliminating employees, rather looking at redistributing money from positions that were vacant for extended periods of time and showed that the work could be completed within the current staffing.

He said that the abolished secretary position had been vacant since the summer of 2023, so that money had just been sitting in the fund not being used.

“I think this is a way of trying to give our employees more money to try and retain them,” Ahner said. “I think it’s a very good thing, restructuring. I think we give a very good example in the commissioners’ office.”

Commissioner Wayne Nothstein “strongly recommended” that all row officers and department heads follow suit and take a look at the current staffing and vacancies and see if there is a way to restructure that would eliminate positions, while providing better pay for the staff within that department.

Nothstein said that the county can’t keep going back to taxpayers to fill the gaps of the budget and said that by doing this within the county offices can help keep costs down, while providing better wages.

Carbon County approved a 3.5 percent raise for all employees in January and vowed to continue to look at ways to provide wages that are more in line with surrounding counties.

The county began the process of a new wage scale at the end of 2022 following a wage study. In January 2023, the department heads and salary board butted heads over the recommendations, however Ahner said that the new scale was a starting point, urging those to hang in there as the county works through the process.

Several positions have already received additional raises in 2023 to fall more in line with the new job description that they submitted in the appeals process.