Benton County officials veto longevity pay

File Photo The Benton County Quorum Court is considering requests to add employees, including in the Road department.
File Photo The Benton County Quorum Court is considering requests to add employees, including in the Road department.

BENTONVILLE -- Benton County justices of the peace defeated a proposed longevity pay policy Tuesday but kept alive possible merit raises for employees.

The Personnel Committee split on a motion to send the longevity pay plan on to the Budget Committee with two votes in favor and three against. Justices of the peace Shirley Sandlin, from District 8, and Michelle Chiocco, from District 10, voted in favor of the plan. Justices of the peace Sue Shadlow, from District 2, Jay Harrison from District 3 and Susan Anglin from District 9 voted against the measure.

What’s next

Benton County’s justices of the peace will continue working on the county’s 2016 budget when the Budget Committee meets at 6 p.m. Oct. 15 in the Quorum Courtroom at the County Administration Building, 215 E.Central Ave. in Bentonville.

Source: Staff report

Barb Ludwig, human resources administrator, said the pay plan would provide employees with increases in salary after they have served a set number of years. The plan would cost the county $183,750 the first year, if adopted as proposed, and about $65,000 a year annually after the first year. Ludwig said the pay would help compensate employees who have reached the maximum pay in their grades. Ludwig argued the longevity pay, combines with merit pay, would allow elected officials to address such problems within their departments'

"Longevity, combined with merit, would be the best of both worlds," Ludwig said.

The committee voted to recommend the Budget Committee consider merit pay increases for employees, but made no recommendation on the size of any increases. According to Brenda Guenther, comptroller, each 1 percent increase in employee pay costs the county about $305,000.

Chiocco said she favors merit pay increases over cost-of-living increases.

"Merit is incentive," she said. "If you work hard you'll get it."

Kevin Harrison of District 5 isn't on the committee but offered his views, saying there are problems with merit pay as well and arguing for a cap in the size of pay increases for employees.

"Some people don't get anything and some other person may get 8 percent," Harrison said. "We don't have a good system for evaluation."

Employees have received pay increases the last four years.

The panel forwarded to the Budget Committee as a discussion item Ludwig's proposal to adopt a system for increasing the pay of elected officials by 4 percent each year until they reach parity with Washington County and then increase the pay annually by 2 percent to keep pace. The Personnel Committee made no recommendation on the proposal.

The committee heard last week from department heads and elected officials asking for 19 positions, with a price tag of about $900,000, and wage changes bringing the cost to more than $1.2 million, according to Ludwig. The panel ranked those positions in a priority order on Tuesday and sent their recommendations on to the Budget Committee.

The committee gave its top ranking to a request to raise the pay for poll workers and precinct sheriffs by $1 an hour.

The top request for new personnel was for an additional deputy for the Benton County Sheriff's Office courthouse security detail. A request to add an assistant director of fire services, under Fire Marshal Marc Trollinger, was ranked second on the list and a network analyst for the Information Technology Department was ranked third.

The Sheriff's Office and Road Department each had substantial personnel requests for 2016.

NW News on 10/07/2015

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