Chair recommends 3.5% county salary increase; members debate COLA stacking and deputy-pay limits

Chair opened the meeting and recommended a 3.5% salary increase for county employees and moved that recommendation at the meeting.

The recommendation matters because participants raised two practical constraints: whether other counties’ practice of adding a separate cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) would be additive to a base increase, and how statutory or locally interpreted limits on deputy pay—commonly set as a percentage of the elected official’s salary—would affect actual wage outcomes for deputies.

During discussion the chair summarized outreach from other counties, saying some reported a 4% base increase plus a 2.7% COLA, which, if additive, would amount to roughly 6.7%. The chair also reported receiving Julia’s email saying she would be OK with 3.5% and gave rough hourly impacts, noting that a 3% change is 'somewhere under a dollar an hour' while 3.5% was 'a little over a dollar an hour.'

The chair explained concerns about deputies’ pay formulas: in several offices deputies are paid as a percentage of the elected official’s wage (examples given ranged from 95% down to 85%), and the chair said a statute change means non-base compensation may now be included in that calculation, which could increase deputies’ pay if commissioners’ increases are applied to the elected official’s full compensation package rather than only base pay.

The chair moved the recommendation, another participant said 'Second,' the chair called for 'All in favor' and multiple attendees said 'I.' The chair then stated, 'Motion carried.' However, the chair and others immediately raised uncertainty about legal effect: the transcript records a discussion that state statute requires the support of two of the three commissioners for certain actions, and participants questioned whether the meeting had the necessary two commissioners present so the legal status of the motion was unclear.

Participants also recounted variable county practices and recent controversies elsewhere in which different interpretations of deputy-pay rules created confusion when prior employee raises exceeded percentage-based adjustments tied to elected salaries.

The meeting did not produce a clarified, binding implementation plan in the transcript: the mover and second were not recorded by name in the accessible transcript and the record contains participants’ expressions of uncertainty about statutory thresholds. The chair indicated the recommendation was 'nice to have' and that outside board members and business-owners’ perspectives were valued, but the action’s final legal effect would depend on whether the statutory requirement for commissioner support was satisfied and on how the county attorney and any applicable statute interpreted deputies’ percentage calculations.

Next steps were not specified in the transcript: the record does not show a completed legal determination or a directive to staff to finalize implementation details.