Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Whitman County commissioners started their first meeting of the new year in a workshop session with Auditor Eunice Coker to discuss staffing concerns. Topics included changing job classifications and requesting permission to advertise to fill a position.
The biggest sticking point in the discussion was the funds to pay for the re-classifications and new personnel. The changes in job classifications will mean the people in those positions are paid more, totaling $15,210 in 2018. Commissioners were willing to change the classifications, but were concerned about the budget, especially for the long term.
“These are not only costs that are continuing, but escalating,” said Gary Petrovich, county administrator.
Commissioner Michael Largent said he was “very uncomfortable” with making changes to the budget, especially after seeing how other counties would expand positions, but not have the money to pay for the increased work.
“I would severely like to avoid that,” he said.
Coker insisted the classification and pay be corrected so the positions could attract and maintain workers.
“You can call it anything you want, they just don’t get paid enough,” Coker told the Gazette. She told commissioners the changes should have been made years ago which left them wondering why the issue was being addressed at this time. Coker’s reply was that commissioners had been freezing classification, so she could not get those changes made.
“They’ve been brought up for years,” she said.
“The biggest thing is getting those three positions back to normal where they can get paid normal,” Coker told commissioners in the workshop meeting. Commissioner Art Swannack again raised the point that the county had only budgeted for so many positions at certain levels. Largent said the staffing struggle to offer enough pay to attract qualified employees with a limited budget was not unique to the auditor.
“I’m not unsympathetic to her challenges,” he said. He said it is everybody’s challenge to not over-extend funds on county positions.
Commissioners agreed to the re-classifications, but took no action on the request to hire, holding off for further discussion. They held to the concern of how to pay a new employee with the current state of the budget.
“To ask me to absorb that in my budget is ridiculous,” Coker told the Gazette. She noted there is money available to cover the costs the commissioners are not using.
After Coker left, commissioners said the added cost for re-classification for 2018 could be covered by the reserve funds, but the trouble was not knowing where the funds will come from in the future.
“You can be as angry as you want,” Largent said. “That does not make the revenue problem go away.”
Jana Mathia is a reporter at the Whitman County Gazette.
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