Budget Hearing Meeting – Salaries, October 21, 2026

This was the Salaries budget hearing / workshop. Finance director Vernon Roth led the discussion with commissioners and staff. No roll-call votes. No public comment. This is policy and modeling for salaries. It is not the general-fund shortfall and it is not a department operating budget. There are two money piles. The first is the salary structure itself. The second is the revenue and insurance pressure that walked through the room: a $650,000 shortfall, sales tax down from $2.236 million to $1.79 million, landfill revenue down $60,000 year-to-date, and insurance/workers’-comp costs at $425,000 this year. Those pressures are not a salary overrun. The room established that no commissioner-approved pay bands or salary ranges currently exist. Salaries are set through job descriptions during the budget process. All pay raises, whether already budgeted or not, require commissioner approval. The personnel policy requires raises to come before the board. The goal stated was to avoid arbitrary or capricious increases and to give department heads room to promote inside their own budgets, with anything over budget coming back to the commissioners. A series of workshops with commissioners, HR, and department heads was proposed to define credentials, workloads, liabilities, and skills so ranges can be set. Examples were named. In the assessor’s office the assessor is at $78,000 and deputies at $74,000. A clerk’s deputy was cited at $54,000. Differences in management responsibility were noted. Elected officials’ salaries (assessor, clerk, treasurer, one commissioner, sheriff, coroner) are set by statute and have increased 4–5% per year; those increases roll into the budget. The new commissioner’s salary and benefits were discussed; health insurance needs confirmation because of retirement status. Finance’s own department salary line dropped $11,000 after one employee’s hours were reduced to 32 per week by mutual agreement. Overall salary increases for the year, excluding elected officials, total $10,419, with possible further change from new hires at Road and Bridge and the landfill. Workers’ compensation has traditionally been paid from the 40 fund. General operations has been carrying liabilities for departments that have their own mill levies. Insurance costs (liability plus workers’ comp) are $425,000 this year. New hires and positions must come before the commissioners so the full cost — salary, benefits, and workers’ comp — is known. A 3% across-the-board raise was estimated at a $150,000 hit. The room directed finance to calculate 1%, 2%, and 3% scenarios for employees who have not already received an increase this year, potentially saving about $50,000 versus a blanket 3%. Mill levies sit at 20.245 and are to be maximized. Reassignment of mill levies (for example from DHS) to cover insurance and capital was discussed. Landfill restructuring was named: combining landfill and recycling under solid waste, with a deputy director in the $35,000–$36,000 range, and possible fee adjustments based on peer counties. Landfill engineering was cited at $17,000 on the last bill. Potential layoffs if revenues continue to drop were discussed and not decided. No motion locked a raise percentage, a pay-band structure, a mill-levy reassignment, or a landfill fee change. Next steps named were the raise-scenario calculations, maximizing mill levies, and workshops on staffing and salary policy.