Commission still worried about economy

Park County employees won’t be getting any raises this fiscal year.

A total of 26 employees had been recommended for raises by their supervisors, but in a split 3-2 decision last month, county commissioners rejected them all.

Including the adjustments to the employees’ benefits — like retirement and Social Security — the requested raises would have cost the county an extra $124,650 a year.

Commissioners rejected a series of similar requests when they built the county’s budget last July, but had pledged to revisit their decision halfway through the fiscal year.

On Dec. 20, the commission again denied the raises, splitting exactly as they did before: commissioners Bucky Hall and Joe Tilden voted in favor of hiking the employees’ pay while commissioners Loren Grosskopf, Lee Livingston and Tim French were opposed.

“I don’t see how anything has changed,” Livingston said in repeating his previous no vote; he noted the county still has fewer tax dollars coming in. Grosskopf had similar concerns and also worried about opening the “floodgates” to more requests for other worthy employees.

“I don’t see what’s different that can provide $120,000 (a year) going forward,” he said.

Commissioners Hall and Tilden, meanwhile, suggested the county could approve the raises and make cuts later, if that turns out to be necessary.

“I do believe the overall Wyoming economy is going to get better,” said Tilden. “Maybe that’s wishful thinking on my part, but I think it’s going to get better.”

Attending his last meeting as a commissioner, Hall said the county has “plenty” of money in its reserves, the raises were deserved and generally weren’t huge.

“We’ll give them the raise now, but come next budget time, they (department leaders) may be asked to cut a full position,” Hall offered, adding that if it becomes necessary to cut positions, “this raise isn’t going to affect those decisions, in my opinion.”

French countered that, “Sometimes it’s easier not to go there if you don’t make the hike.”

As commission chairman, French cast the deciding vote against the requests.

“I’m opposed because one is like a $15,000 (raise) and I just can’t go there,” he said, apparently referring to a $15,490.80 raise that was listed as having been requested for the county’s assistant planner. However, after this story was published, county officials realized the figure presented to commissioners was drastically inflated. County planner Linda Gillett had actually been trying to get a roughly $2,550 raise for the assistant planner; the error occurred when the clerk's office misread a reference to $24.87 an hour as $2,467.

Because French didn’t mention what position he was talking about, and Gillett knew she hadn’t asked for that kind of a raise, “I thought, ‘Well it’s not me, so I’m not going to worry about it,’” she explained on Jan. 25.

“I would never ask for that much money for anyone considering that the county is in a budget crunch,” Gillett added.

With the corrected numbers, the combined cost of the 26 proposed raises was $108,260, rather than $124,650.

At last month's meeting, Park County Chief Information Officer Mike Conners requested raises for his three employees that totaled between $9,600 and $10,200 apiece.

Conners said he has “great people” working for him, but he said the driving force for the request was data showing that his employees make $5 an hour less than other local IT workers; the more substantial increase, he said, was “just because they were that far behind.”

The commissioners listened to more than 20 minutes worth of pitches about each of the proposed raises before voting. Of the 26 requests, 23 of the raises would have been less than $6,000 a year and 19 were less than $3,000.

When they first turned down the salary hikes in July, commissioners said they wanted to reconsider the decision after the election. But President Donald Trump’s ascent to the White House was not enough to sway any of the three nay votes.

“I realize that at budget (time), and currently, too, the county has to watch its nickels and dimes, but we do have a new president-elect,” Clerk of District Court Patra Lindenthal said. “I’m hoping and praying that we’ll get things turned around and we’ll get back to normal so we won’t have to lose... I can’t lose an employee.”

“You could — in a year,” Hall warned.

“Nobody’s crystal ball is real clear on this,” Tilden added.

The commission’s recent decision means Conners was the only county employee to get a raise this budget year — and that raise was not based on job performance, but to fix a problem that arose with Conners’ retirement (see related story in the Jan. 24 edition of the Powell Tribune).

The county attorney, assessor, clerk, clerk of district court, treasurer and first deputies are receiving a small wage increase this month under a pay plan approved in 2014.

Commissioners gave all employees a boost last month by tweaking the county’s health insurance/wellness plan and allowing employees and their spouses to each earn as much as $600 a year (up from $500) for certain medical expenses. Bucking national trends, costs have been holding steady for the county’s self-funded health insurance plan.

Park County has roughly 200 employees. Their wages and benefits make up about half of the budget.

(Editor's note: This version of the story corrects and updates various figures that were tied to the request for the assistant planner.)