Supervisors discuss pay increases, CAO
The Plumas County Board of Supervisors talked about the County Administrative Officer’s position and raises for elected officials at the board meeting on Nov. 14, though decisions on the topics where tabled for discussion on a later date.
Raises for Elected Officials
County elected officials could get up to a 10 percent raise after a reading of an ordinance that amended salaries at the meeting. Those who could receive the raise are the Assessor, Auditor, Clerk Recorder, District Attorney, Sheriff, Coroner, and Treasurer Tax-Collector. According to the ordinance, each elected official would get a $10,000 to $15,000 raise a year.
The raises would come from the departments’ budgets, and not the general fund of the county.
“If everybody did their budgets as tight as we asked them to, I think it would be hard for them to absorb this,” said District 3 Supervisor Sherrie Thrall. “The other thing is that we are also looking at requests from our department heads for increases, and we’d better be prepared to give them a similar increase.”
There were some language problems within the ordinance and the board decided to review the ordinance again at the mid-year budget review in January.
Discussion of CAO Position
The board took a look at the drafted job description of the County Administrative Officer. The job description was created and presented by Human Resources Director Nancy Selvage.
“What we need to decide is if this is the kind of job description we want,” said District 4 Supervisor Lori Simpson. “Do we want a CAO? I have heard of a county manager … or a lesser type of position.”
The board members gave input as to the content of the job description.
“The $130,000 that we put aside is not going to fund the office … but on the same token I do feel like we need some kind of position of management,” said Thrall.
“I have concern with the way this reads,” said Thrall. “It makes me feel like we are … just handing our decisions over to one person, who is an employee. So I think we need to really scrutinize this.”
The draft ordinance will be presented to the board again after the board members have researched further what they would like on the job description.
“I think it is a really good start for a good discussion,” said Thrall.
Its hard to hear about raises when we are struggling to keep out street lights on.
I agree with Teryn. It seems a bit self serving to be discussing pay raises after just having a special election to ask the citizens of Quincy on whether or not they want to keep the lights on at their own expense. Would have been better to save the cost of the election and put that toward funding the street lights.
Find a way to finance the street lights.
This must be why they cutting other much needed programs. SO WRONG
I think until Plumas County is thriving in every other area, not cutting special programs, and implement programs that are needed but have been discontinued due to lack of funds, no raise should even be considered!
This is why politicians get into these positions. It’s a job for them. They get pay and Bennifits. You either pay them for the work they do, or not. We are in hard times. Tighten your belts. Work with what you have. If we remove the pay, I’m betting elected officials, would all drop like flys. If the citizens are concerned with pay show up or write in expressing your concerns. I am of the opinion that no worker is automatically intitaled to a pay raise period. Pay and or raises for elected officials should be decided by the voters during an election cycle.
Public safety should be a priority for our county. If 911 is called we should demand that a police, ambulance and fire truck are available within a resonable time frame.