The County Auditor, Angie Birchmeier recently brought to the attention of the President of the Commissioners, Stan Klotz the requirement that the commissioners make a recommendation to the County Council for pay raises for next year’s budgeting process.
The budget project starts next month, thus Klotz said he needed to make the recommendation to the County Council at Thursday’s meeting. This will allow department heads to increase salaries in their budgets for the request process.
While the three commissioners had a broad range of ideas, they were able to collectively settle on a 4% increase as their recommendation.
While their recommendation is non-binding, there was talk last year about doing a flat rate because percentage increases give those who make higher salaries a larger increase than those who make a lesser salary or hourly rate.
The commissioners made the rate a bit higher to give the County Council some flexibility when it comes to the budgeting process.