Citing budget impacts from the COVID-19 crisis, a citizen salary commission unanimously voted via Zoom on Tuesday evening to freeze the pay levels for all Whitman County elected officials for 2021.
The Citizens’ Commission on Salaries for Elected Officials is a 10-person board appointed by the Whitman County commissioners. The group meets annually to set pay rates for county-level elected officials in the coming year based on the pay for similar positions at comparable counties and other factors.
Salary commission chairman Darren Jones said Tuesday the board had approved steady pay increases for cost of living and job market adjustments in recent years. Read our coverage of last year’s commission decision to approve a 3 percent raise for all county elected officials.
“Of course, everything has changed with COVID and the economy and the financial woes that have hit our nation,” he said, adding, “I’m kind of thinking it will be a zero percent [increase] from me this year just because of the COVID situation, but I’d like to entertain some thoughts.”
As outlined in state law, the salary commission sets the pay levels for the county auditor, assessor, county clerk, county commissioners, coroner, prosecutor, sheriff and treasurer. The states also pays toward part of the prosecutor’s salary.
Jones explained the commission has typically approved cost of living raises for officials every other year with more specific, market-based adjustments on the alternate years. This year was expected to be a market-adjusted year.
But he also noted the commission previously froze salary levels during the recession from 2010-2012.
“A lot of that was due to the economy,” he said.
The commission later compensated for the recession freezes with 8 to 9.6 percent salary increases for most elected officials in 2013. Jones said the commission had averaged 3.65 percent increases since its creation in 2005.
Many local elected officials’ salaries have nearly doubled in that 15-year time period.
Commission member Eric Reiber said his discussions with people at the county reinforced his support for freezing salaries this year and re-evaluating pay levels once the budget had stabilized.
“We know we’ve got agencies that are open to or looking at layoffs,” he said.
After a discussion of about 10 minutes, Reiber motioned to approve a zero percent pay increase for 2021. The other commissioners unanimously agreed.
The commission’s recommendation will be set to the Auditor’s Office and state law mandates county officials must adopt the pay rates into the next year’s budget.
Historic salary data from Whitman County: