Smallest paychecks earn attention

By JEFFREY S. SOLOCHEK

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 27, 2000

BROOKSVILLE -- A day after they relented and agreed to pay a fleet manager a competitive $52,500 wage, Hernando County commissioners discussed ways to better pay employees on the lower rungs.

"We still have people who are making less than poverty working for the county and some of them start at $6.15 an hour," Chairman Paul Sullivan said during the waning moments of the commission's budget workshop. "When is the board going to take care of them?"

He suggested setting a minimum pay rate of $8 an hour for county workers, stating such an expense would be better for families than paying for a 15-passenger van to drive children to summer programs, another budget item.

The county has 56 full- and part-time employees who earn less than $8 an hour. It has 44 employees who earn more than the commissioners' $44,137 salary.

Commissioner Pat Novy lauded the idea and called it necessary. The others saw it fraught with potential problems.

If the commission raises the lowest salaries, it will have to readjust the entire pay scale to remain fair to all employees, Commissioner Nancy Robinson said.

"We need more information before we make any decision," Robinson said. "I want the details."

Commissioner Bobbi Mills noted that the county sought to increase its pay rates two years ago but saw the peril of such raises almost immediately. Higher salaries might force the county to require more experience of its low-level employees, for instance, she said.

A better way to go might be to give all employees a 5 percent raise, rather than 3 percent for cost of living and up to 2 percent for merit, Mills said.

County Administrator Paul McIntosh said he planned to recommend giving all employees, except department heads, who are rated above 3 on the county's 5-point evaluation system the full 2 percent merit raise next year. That would give supervisors more time to become acquainted with the merit system, which the county began using last year, he said.

Only 12 employees earned ratings of less than 3 last year, McIntosh said, so very few people would not get the full raise.

Commissioners accepted that idea as one way to increase pay. But they still wanted to hear McIntosh's report on the affect of lifting the pay schedule.

Only Commissioner Chris Kingsley opposed the entire discussion.

"You're sitting here arbitrarily saying whether a person who makes $6.86 an hour makes too much or too little," Kingsley said.

The administration needs to look at job descriptions, qualifications, benefits and a host of other criteria before determining employee pay, he said.

"To sit here and say we've got to bring this guy up to $8 no matter what he does, that is just not right," Kingsley said, calling for a documented report detailing why salaries should go up before he would support the idea.

McIntosh said he would bring the matter back to the board in August.

In other budget items, the commission also agreed to reduce the amount it would spend for a swimming pool feasibility study from $50,000 to $15,000. It increased its contribution to United Way charities from $80,000 this year to $100,000 next fiscal year, including administrative fees, added a third waterways maintenance technician for $30,482 and allowed the Parks and Recreation Department to expand its septic system at Jenkins Creek Park and replace the picnic shelter at Alfred A. McKethan Park at Pine Island.

The commission also gave Parks and Recreation Director Pat Fagan permission to create an in-house cleaning staff for county government buildings if bids to contract the service come in too high. The budget for such services is $324,000.

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