2025-12-22 Salary Commission Minutes

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Salary Commission December 22, 2025 many of them—and not only them, people who work in all the departments that are entry-level or out in the field, are the ones that making the operations work—and it’s thankless. And so, it’s kind of an insult or actually it is an insult—to just hear that raises are just—it’s freely given almost, because even if you look at the departments individually—a lot of them are not doing well. They’re—they have internal problems. Workforce—there’s turnovers, there’s workers’ comp. claims, there’s sick leave—that’s something deeper that we need to look at because I don’t know where the verification comes from or the data comes from. But if you know what I know, and see what I’ve seen, heard what I’ve heard—it is not something that you can easily do to provide or give raises. And with the inversion, which is your Findings—of the 13 Findings, there are four that stand out; two of them regard inversions. And according to the report that was given last month by HR on inversions, there doesn’t appear to be any systemic pay failures. There’s only two positions—and this is a snapshot of just that one month. So, is it fair to say that given just this information is enough to justify raises across-the-board? I can’t see that. And the total of this one month is $1,300.00 compare to what will happen if all the raises are—if the raises are approved. So—and there are reasons why there’s this problem. It’s the vacancies. You’ve got to fill the vacancies. The inversion part is not inversion so much—as maybe salary compression or not even that. So, all I’m saying is the argument on the Findings of Fact is not enough—I feel—to justify the raise. I guess that’s my time. CHR. PAVAO: Thank you. MS. OTSUKA: So, yeah, I just—I know you folks are going to do what you do. I don’t envy you. I’ve been on a commission. I’ve gotten dismissed because this issue with staffing is bigger than I think, but working in the public sector and the government, I’ve had to deal with hiring. So, it’s not something that we just meet once-a-year or a few times a year and automatically say that, “Well, I think they’re deserving”—and I’m sure a lot of them don’t really want the raises at this time because it doesn’t look good—and they got paid—and they get paid very well. They’ve come from jobs that probably didn’t pay as well and didn’t get automatic raises—but when you came to the County, a lot of people want to come here because why? Stability. So, their pay, I’m sure they’re happy with. So, I don’t think it would be such a big deal to pause. CHR. PAVAO: Okay, thank you very much. MS. OTSUKA: Okay. Page 4