2013-08-28 Minutes Salary Commission

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Salary Commission August 28, 2013 you this—it's a great experience working with the people on the Subcommittee. And, basically, if I wanted to give everybody a raise, this would have been your chance, but—sorry, I couldn't do that for anybody and neither could anyone of us. And, as far as finding the money out there, it's going to be out there. You watch. Somebody's going to pop up with—there's some extra money to pay these people—and it'll happen. So, basically, for the benefit of my fellow Commissioners—as well as you in the public—I'd like to provide a little context for the recommendations that we all made. Back in February, we started an investigation subcommittee consisting of Commissioners Sumj a—to my left—and Commissioner Stroh—to my right. And the task was reviewing the current salaries of the executives and elected officials, and making recommendations for adjustments. And, we worked really hard at that. And, remember now, we are just a volunteer team that comes on board and looks at figure after figure—and we really don't know anybody and, personally, it was easy to work with because we didn't know who the people were. Well, some of us did—but we didn't, definitely, know who was getting what—where, until we worked at this. And at the March Salary Commission,the Subcommittee made recommendations for salary increases all across-the-board. These recommended increases would have amounted to a total of$224,000. Then, in April, after some discussion amongst the Commissioners and after receiving input from the public as well as from the Administration,the Commission decided it would be premature to take action on the proposed increases at this time. And the Subcommittee was tasked with revisiting and possibly readjusting the previous developed recommendations. Following that meeting in April, the Subcommittee did meet and we put together the recommended salary adjustments that are being presented to you today. You can see that we have narrowed the recommended increases to apply to just 13 positions at a total amount of$149,000 as compared to the previous $224,000. A significant consideration in targeting these particular positions for salary increases was to address the problem of salary inversion or a subordinate making more than the department heads and deputies. And you can see on the table we put together—there's a column that indicates a highest subordinate salary. You all have a copy of that(SEE ATT. C). You must be very busy reading. Page 5