Seemingly done deal runs aground during special commission meeting
What looked at first like a done deal turned into an epic flip flop last week during a special county commission meeting.
The special session was called after the previous meeting on Dec. 20 when commissioners managed to pass a 2023 spending plan. Included in that plan was a 7 percent cost of living increase (COLA) for most of the county’s 145 employees, including elected officials, though commissioners carefully excluded themselves.
The 7 percent COLA— POST-certified sheriff’s employees, landfill workers and road department operators received $4 an hour pay bumps in lieu of the COLA—was part of a negotiated settlement between outgoing commissioners Evelyn Warnick and Dean Draper. The third commissioner, Bill Wright, voted no on most of the new spending.
Draper earlier sought an 8.7 percent COLA, but agreed to the lower rate if Warnick agreed to offer inflation adjustment bonuses to employees, including those receiving the substantial hourly rate increases, who previously didn’t receive one.
Warnick agreed and the 2023 budget was passed.
However, to pay the additional bonuses, the commission was forced to return a week later and reopen the 2022 budget. They couldn’t do it on Dec. 20 because there was no public notice to do so.
Also, a plan seemed in place at the end of the Dec. 20 meeting to revisit a previously adopted measure that paid $5,000 inflation adjustment bonuses to employees and elected officials outside of the landfill, road and sheriff’s departments. Those checks went out Dec. 16, but employees complained they were unaware the county was deducting a portion of the checks to pay for benefits and other typical payroll deductions.
Since the budget was being reopened anyway, one proposal, which at the time seemed to have the support of at least two commissioners, called for giving employees another check, this time bringing the total bonus to an even $5,000.
That would have incurred an additional expense of some $500,000. The bonuses already paid amounted to only about $308,000.
But during an often confusing debate over the bonuses last Tuesday, not only did Warnick and Draper commit to not providing additional bonus checks to cover the deductions previously taken out, but also agreed to only extend $2,000 bonuses for POST-certified sheriff’s office employees, and no bonuses at all for the landfill and road department employees who received the hourly wage increases in the new year.
Wright voted against any bonus for the sheriff’s, road and landfill employees unless they received a lower hourly rate increase—which was too late since it had already passed at the previous meeting. So he voted no on extending the additional bonuses to those three departments.
Warnick suggested her rationale for not extending the bonuses to landfill and road department employees was because their hourly pay bumps beginning this year already meant they were receiving substantial raises.
She asked Bonnie Smith, the county’s auditor, to provide an illustration of just how big the hourly sheriff’s, landfill and road workers pay bumps would be.
Smith said for the sheriff’s office it would average about 17 percent, though for the lowest paid deputies it represented as much as a 23 percent increase.
“There’s a range because the lower the pay, the higher the percentage goes up,” Smith said.
A $4 an hour raise for road department workers represents an average 15 percent pay bump, she said, with a range of 10 to 19 percent. The same raise for landfill workers averaged about 17 percent, with a range from 15 to 19 percent, she said.
“So they are getting a pretty good COLA as it is right there,” Warnick said.
Draper eventually asked Warnick to return to the bonus discussion and she at first offered to agree to $1,000 bonuses only for sheriff’s deputies.
“My suggestion was $5,000 each. Now will you go two ($2,000)?” Draper asked Warnick at one point.
She countered with $1,500, but later demurred and agreed to $2,000 bonuses, but none for landfill and road workers.
“That’s who we need to retain,” Warnick said of the sheriff’s deputies, a shortage of whom have lately impacted the county. The county had already, during its 2023 budget discussions, agreed to raise the base pay for deputies and provide a $10,000 signing bonus for newly hired cops.
Commissioners also agreed to extend $5,000 bonuses— minus deductions—to two Utah State University Extension employees who were missed. Their salaries are paid by the county, though it is reimbursed by the university. Also, the bonuses were extended to four other county workers who somehow were skipped.
Much debate heralded in last month’s spending spree and the arduous budgeting process surrounding it.
Draper and Wright appeared on opposite ends of the spectrum when it came to spending the one-time federal funds allocated to the county this fall—$3.9 million for 2022 and another $3.9 million in 2023.
Wright repeatedly argued those funds should not be spent on ongoing expenses, such as employee salaries. Even as late as the Dec. 27 meeting he was making the same argument, at one point reading a quote from Gov. Spencer Cox, who recently outlined a spending plan that would represent the state’s largest ever budget.
“We never try to pay for ongoing programs with one-time money,” Wright recited. “Even better we have identified $600 million ongoing and $300 million one-time revenue we consider high risk. We are proposing these funds go to low risk projects in case we have an economic downturn,” Wright quoted the governor.
The commissioner went on to say that prosperity, whether in someone’s personal life or in county operations, requires development of good habits.
“I think we have deviated a little bit from those good habits. And I am just going to suggest once again prosperity will come, we have lots of things on the horizon. And it will only come if we develop good spending habits, if we are frugal in what we do, and as commissioners we take our fiduciary responsibility to prepare us for the future,” he said.
Draper, for his part, has repeatedly said future budgets are not his concern since he would no longer be in office. With the money in hand now, he said, there is no spending deficit. He also said he supported county employees and felt they should be taken care of as any business takes care of its workforce.
Though it’s correct the surprise federal funds provided commissioners the opportunity to provide ample pay increases and bonuses, both county auditor and treasurer’s offices reported those funds would be exhausted within 42 months at the county’s current spending rate.
Officials remain hopeful that economic development within the county will increase future revenue and make deficit spending, particularly on salaries, a moot point.
