Resolution would tie elected officials to employee wage schedule

The Oneida County labor relations committee has approved and forwarded to the full county board a resolution to set the wages for 2025 through 2028 for three county elected officials — the county clerk, the treasurer, and register of deeds — which includes assigning the positions going forward to the county’s exempt wage schedule.

Wages for the upcoming terms for those officials must be set prior to the earliest time for filing nomination papers for the positions.

In the past, the wages for the elected officials have been set using a flat-dollar amount ahead of each four-year term. 

That has proved problematic, as unpredictable cost of living adjustments (COLA) for other employees have caused the elected officials to fall further and further behind their county counterparts. 

Putting the positions on the exempt wage schedule would allow them to stay caught up with COLA adjustments.

According to the resolution approved by the labor relations committee, the wages for those three positions would be set at level O, step 3 for 2025 — about $85,579. 

Assuming a 3-percent COLA for county employees next year, the wage would be $88,146. If the COLA is less, the fiscal impact would be less.

That’s substantially more than the current wage of $71,180 for those positions, but everybody — the committee and the elected officials — thought it justified because the wages of other county employees have been galloping so far ahead.

There had been some question whether the wages of the elected officials could be tied to a wage schedule, but corporation counsel Michael Fugle advised that it could be, and in fact other counties do so.

Oneida County register of deeds Kyle Franson said tying the wages to the wage schedule would alleviate the boom-and-bust pattern of prior years.

“Counties are having to try and catch up every four years with other department heads in those counties,” Franson said. “I guess the concern is how do we get caught back up? Well every four years we’re revisiting this and having to make big bumps and I think I’m seeing some pretty big bumps.”

In Monroe County, Franson said, officials proposed bumping elected officials’ wages from 2024 to 2025 by 32 percent to get caught up with their other department heads. 

“Some of the large increases are like 25 percent or 20 percent,” he said. “Those are kind of common from what I’m seeing right away in other counties, just trying to keep them up with their wages.”

Tying the elected positions to a wage schedule, Franson said, keeps the positions up to speed with where other department heads are. 

“I know that there was discussion about us not being a department head, but I think we are tied very closely to department heads with the managing of duties that we have to do and we have to keep up,” he said. “So I think what we’re asking for is fair. It also keeps up with not having to chase or adjust wages every four years. And that is something that I think we’ve battled for the last three terms. This is my third go-round.”

Supervisor Robb Jensen said he agreed that some adjustment had to be made.

“I think they’re certainly behind,” Jensen said, adding that those are busy positions.

“ I have no doubt that the three of these people are busy with what they’re doing,” he said.

Supervisor Diana Harris said the proposal made sense from an organizational point of view as well.

“I just wanted to interject that from a efficiency standpoint, I think getting them on the wage schedule, it makes a lot of sense to me, then we don’t have to keep having this discussion every couple of years,” Harris said. “So I would like to see that happen moving forward.”

There was some suggestion that the catch-up could be spread out over several years, but Franson said it was only fair to catch them up from the start.

“I think it’s only fair for us to look at the 2025 wage and bring it up to speed,” he said. “Over the last four years we’ve had COLAs [and other] adjustments for other employees, as well as the department heads. I think it’s only fair to be able to make those adjustments regardless of what that number is.”

Right out of the gate, Franson said, he thought the three positions were short 20 percent.

“So again, 2025, I think we still have to factor in that on that first year,” he said. “We feel it’s right to bring us up to speed with what we have not received.”

Franson also agreed with Harris’s perspective.

“The whole sole purpose for getting us tied to this is that we don’t have to chase this,” he said. “And a lot of counties are putting together big percentages right now to be able to compensate for those losses for similar situations. This would alleviate that and at the same point in time, if for some godforsaken reason in four years you don’t feel like that’s great or the wage schedule changes, well then that is also directly tied to our offices. So I think that yes, it’s a hard number right up front, but I think it’s only fair for us to get caught up in those lost wages.”

Oneida County board chairman Scott Holewinski also endorsed the idea and said it seemed the elected officials always tended to end up on the short end of the stick.

“Especially, for sure, the last two years, half the employees got over 10 percent and half got 7 percent,” Holewinski said. “So a catch-up, to be fair with what’s in our county, I believe we have to bring them up to where everybody else is. Why would we take the elected officials and be cheaper than the heads of departments are getting for increases?”

County clerk Tracy Hartman also pointed out that the elected officials lack a PTO pay-out benefit.

“We do not receive PTO, so we cannot cash out PTO,” Hartman said. “If we don’t use it, we can’t cash it out.”

In 2022, Hartman said, exempt employees cashed out $138,000 in PTO: “That’s a benefit that we do not have access to.”

Supervisor Steven Schreier said it made sense to adopt the same proposal for all elected officials, and the policy should be that everyone sees the same wage increases. 

He acknowledged that the timing takes place differently for those positions because of the way it’s structured statutorily.

“We can’t do anything about that, but they would be automatically caught up even if they would not see the increase until their next term,” he said. “But that’s the unfortunate drawback to the way the government decided to structure that and we can’t control that.”

Other than that, Schreier said he did not see any negative to the proposal.

“I’m not seeing a big drawback for us other than we’ve been able to take advantage of them fiscally time and time again,” he said. “But that shouldn’t be a reason to deny a request just because it saved us money.”

One question was whether the proposal mirrored the county’s changes to the sheriff’s wages two years ago or whether it would spark more costs for that position.

Hartman said it would not cause more costs.

“The sheriff’s wage was based on the chief deputy and 7 percent above the chief deputy,” she said. “So, the sheriff is not going to come back in two years and say, ‘well you guys gave the clerk and the treasurer and the register of deeds this and I want this.’”

Richard Moore is the author of “Dark State” and may be reached at richardd3d.substack.com.