County employees will find themselves earning a bit more later this year after the Sweetwater County Commissioners committed to providing a 6% cost of living adjustment.
The adjustment will amount to an additional $1.4 million earmarked for employee salaries during the next budget year. The group is concerned about the impacts of high inflation on employees and the fact that they haven’t seen a significant cost of living allocation in several years.
Commissioner Randy Wendling said employee salaries have fallen behind between 8-12% and would like to see a system that keeps employee wages in line with inflation created. Inflation has been an issue for state employees, which has led to the state’s budget including a 5.6% cost of living allocation for its employees.
The 6% may be the start of a push to bring county wages in line with inflation over the next few years, as many commissioners also support an additional 6% COLA as part of the 2023-2024 budget. However, concerns about encumbering a future group of county commissioners with that commitment also prevent them from committing to a similar allocation next year. With the upcoming election, three of the five county commissioners face re-election to their positions: Roy Lloyd, Jeffrey Smith and Wendling. For Commissioner Mary Thoman, she doesn’t believe it’s fair to commit future commissioners to the increase as it is possible there could be three new commissioners as a result of the 2022 election. If a secondary 6% is approved next year, it would result in a $3 million investment in county employees.
“We need to take care of our employees,” Wendling said.
“It’s costing everyone much more to survive,” Commissioner Lauren Schoenfeld said.
While Thoman voted in favor of the increase, she also said some county employees have some of the highest salaries in the county for their jobs and urged the others to have a longterm view on how the increases would impact the county’s budget. Commissioner Roy Lloyd said the county has succeeded in downsizing significantly, eliminating 85 positions over the last decade. This was accomplished mainly through attrition and strategic early retirement incentives offered by the county. Lloyd said the reason they were able to eliminate those positions is by spreading the workload to the remaining employees, asking employees to do more with less.
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