Two court positions and a legal question led to a lengthy discussion during Carbon County’s monthly salary board meeting on Thursday.

President Judge Roger Nanovic approached the board, saying that he had no intention of making the two motions on the agenda reverting the salary of two law clerk positions, which are vacant at this time due to employees leaving for other, higher paying positions, back to the starting salary.

Both motions move a law clerk position back to $40,458.60.

Nanovic said that he had asked county solicitor Robert Frycklund a legal question about salaries, a case cited previously and using funds earmarked for salaries with vacant positions for salary increases because there is extra money from these vacancies.

He said that it would be about 30 days for his research on the matter to be completed.

Commissioner Chris Lukasevich asked county administrator Eloise Ahner to read the two motions, which then died for lack of a second.

Ahner then was asked to clarify what happens because the motions for all court positions were not funded and the proposed exhibits had not been proposed for approval at the annual salary board meeting last month.

Ahner said that the court salaries will now revert to 2022 rates since the 2023 exhibit the county had proposed and funded in the budget was not approved.

Nanovic told the board he takes issue with the matter because they had been set at the salary board annual meeting, but noted that he feels Lukasevich wants to circumvent the issue.

He added that within the 2023 budget, the county allocated sufficient funds to fund 100% of all salaries that were recommended by that commissioners under the new wage scale. The salary board then voted 3-2 to approve salaries above those recommendations.

Within the court salaries, there is a savings, which Nanovic said he felt should be possible as an additional source to offset raises.

“The question that is currently being researched is whether or not those savings are now available,” he said, “and should you define the additional increases that were approved by the salary. That’s the funding issue. ... So the question really is, are those funds already there and can they be used to fund these increases?”

Commissioner Rocky Ahner said he didn’t think it would be good to take money from vacant positions and then they are filled down the road and it creates a problem in the future.

Nanovic said he understood Ahner’s concern, but said that the money is budgeted and allocated for salaries so he feels that it should be used for salaries and paying these increases.

He said he will wait to see what Frycklund determines.

Lukasevich equated the matter to robbing Peter to pay Paul because it was taking from one pot and putting it in another without repaying Peter.

Commissioners’ Chairman Wayne Nothstein pointed out that the county voted to commit $800,000 for salaries without increasing the revenues and passing a budgeting with a $3.8 million deficit being filled with general fund savings.

“Well, you have two options, you raise revenue or you decrease expenditures,” Lukasevich said. “Right. So I would say and again, not speaking for Commissioner Ahner, but speaking with him we’re believers in decreasing expenditures are not simply continuing to expand. And Commissioner (Nothstein), you have a history of expend, expend, expend in lieu of trying to find savings and be fiscally responsible for money, which belongs to the 64,000 residents.”

Nothstein, during the budget process in December, warned the county that using a large portion of the savings the county has to pad the budget and offset a tax increase will come back to bite the county in years to come and a larger than necessary tax increase will be needed. At that time, he had proposed including a half-mill increase in the budget to help cover these costs.

He also pointed out that a previous board of commissioners, which he had sat on at the time, eliminated the occupational tax for county residents; and added that costs for services the county is responsible to provide are getting more expensive.

“Are you going to take away from the aging? Are you going to take away from the veterans? All our other offices who provide services,” Nothstein said. “If we don’t have the people to provide the services, who’s in trouble?”