GREENFIELD — In a continued discussion over pay raises for county employees, the Hancock County Council has recommended a lower amount than the county commissioners. Conflicted over how much financial risk to take on in offering employees higher pay, the two bodies will have to resolve their conflict at next month’s budget meeting.
The council voted to recommend an increase in pay of 7% for most employees and 18% for sheriff’s deputies. That would result in a lower balance in the county’s general fund, council member Jim Shelby said, but one that he thought would be reasonable, “as long as we’re not going to allow more people to be hired.”
“The question is, how much do we want to eat into the balances?” Shelby said.
The higher proposal, he said, would “limit us on what we can do in other areas.”
In contrast, the county commissioners recommended a raise of 24% for deputies and 7% for all other employees, plus the hiring of nine additional deputies over the next three years.
Council member Bill Bolander said the matter of paying for additional merit deputies was something the county likely couldn’t accomplish right away and should continue to discuss; he said future changes in state legislation might make it easier to do.
The amount found to be sustainable by the county’s financial advisers — meaning it would not result in a decrease of the county’s fund balances over time — was a raise of 12% for merit deputies and 3.5% for all other county employees.
Of four proposals recently looked at by the financial advisers, the council’s preferred option would leave the county with the highest general fund balance in 2025, of over $5.6 million. Another proposal, which would use the commissioners’ preferred numbers and use a tax increase to fund the hiring of nine additional deputies, would result in a 2025 end balance of about $4.8 million.
The sustainability study by the financial advisers also didn’t include the addition of any new deputies. The county commissioners recommended adding nine deputies over a period of three years, in hopes of keeping up with the county’s increasing population and expanding number of large industrial developments.
Commissioner John Jessup said he thought he made a clear case at the board’s recent meeting that the county should be willing to take on the higher raise and the new hires, even though it was not found “sustainable” by advisers at Financial Solutions Group. He said that the need for raises and additional staffing is urgent enough that the council, as the county’s fiscal body, should find a way to pay for them.
Jessup said the cost of the raises wouldn’t eat into the county’s current fund balances; instead, it would slow the rate of growth for those balances, which are currently increasing by about $2 million every year. He said the county’s cautious budgeting process means it ends up taking in more and spending less than it budgets for almost every year.
“I have a high school diploma, and I can discern that that’s sustainable,” he said.
As for the addition of more deputies, Jessup emphasized that nine is the number needed to have an additional patrol car on the road at all times, which Sheriff Brad Burkhart has said is a necessity.
The council also approved a resolution to rescind their previous recommendation that any raise should take effect in July. Two members, Jeannine Gray and Keely Butrum, voted against that, arguing that something should be done before the first of the year.
The next meeting of the county’s budget committee, which includes both the council members and the commissioners, will take place on July 2 beginning at 8:30 a.m.
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Greenfield City Council gives first OK to pay increases for police officers, firefighters. Page A2
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