After going over budget cuts for three weeks, Allen County Commissioners were able to come to an agreement on the 2020 budget. Commissioners agreed that they could not keep targeting roads and bridges, which has taken the brunt of cuts in recent weeks.
Instead, commissioners decided to lower wage increases going into 2020.
County employees will have the opportunity to earn up to a 4% increase in the upcoming year a guaranteed 3% (Cost of Living Adjustment) raise with the chance of a 1% merit increase. But the days of being able to earn a 5% raise are over, at least for the time being.
Commissioners Bruce Symes and Bill King pushed for 3 percent to be the maximum raise next year, but Jerry Daniels didnt agree, saying that would go back on a previous promise.
We gave the 5-percent increases to get their wages out of the stone ages, Daniels said. I would hate to think that a day we improve the budget is a day that we are going to reduce a possible raise that the employees have been talking about. We have been talking about this for months, it is not a secret.
Last week, commissioners cut $563,000 from the budget $355,000 from road and bridge, $94,000 from the sheriffs department, $58,000 from the jail and $56,000 from dispatch which was too much in the minds of King and Symes.
Personally, I thought the sheriff got cut pretty deep. Our charge includes public safety, and I would hate to have to cut back on patrol, Symes said.
King agreed, saying he thought the county should do away with percentage raises.
We did that percentage rate raise deliberately to put some spread between our employees. Now it has gotten to the point that the spread is there, and it is starting to be a big difference, particularly in some of the top tier employees. We had that brought to us by one of our department heads. There is a time to use that and there is a time to quit doing that. I think we should do away with the percentage raise at this point and go back to the dollar rate, and that leaves the spread that we have now, King said.
After going back and forth, Daniels offered a compromise.
Lets compute a 4-percent increase a 3% COLA and a 1% merit increase and next year we plan on 3 percent or even less, Daniels said.
Symes indicated the culture the county has created, has basically guaranteed a 5% raise for all employees.
There is a little bit of a mindset, when we talk about a 3% COLA and a 2% merit. We do automatically think we are going to get a 5% raise. There is that mindset we are instilling there that almost forgets the merit raise is earned, Symes said.
Symes then urged commissioners to agree not to accept an increase in pay next year, so they could lead by example. Everyone was in agreeance.
Symes said that if raises were reduced from 5% to 3% the county would be able to save $151,000. Instead, they went agreed on 4%.
