A room full of county employees applauded the Morgan County Board of Commissioners last Tuesday after the board unanimously approved $1.1 million in pay raises.
The raises came after new Sheriff Tyler Hooks asked the board on Feb. 4 to implement a pay scale recommended in a study last year for sheriff’s office employees, amounting to $226,770 in raises for the remainder of FY25 and $491,183 for each fiscal year after.
However, the Board of Commissioners decided to implement the pay scale for all county employees, with the adjustments putting Morgan County at approximately 105% of the labor market based on average pay. The plan with associated taxes and benefits will cost the county $1,119,502.87.
With no funds allocated for the plan in the FY25 budget, the BOC plans to approve a budget resolution at its March 4 meeting to pull the funds from the county’s fund balance. Once the resolution passes, the pay raises will take effect at the start of the next pay period on March 8.
While the BOC plans to dip into its fund balance for now, it must find long-term solutions to cover the funds. With four to six months of funds needed to keep the reserves stable, commissioners may need to consider other sources of revenue or the millage rate to cover the pay plan costs in future budgets.
Nevertheless, commissioners remained hopeful that they would be able to cover the expense and highlighted the need for raises in their decision.
“The study was done for everybody. We got needs everywhere. The sheriff’s office has needs; everybody else has needs, too. I think we should go ahead and bite the bullet,” District 3 Commissioner Ben Riden said. “We’ll still have plenty of reserves left … You were going to have to dip into it anyway, if you did the one for the sheriff’s office. You might as well go ahead, dip into it [for everybody], and run a lean budget the next two years.”
“For me personally, I believe you take care of your people, and everything else takes care of itself for the most part,” District 2 Commissioner Blake McCormack added. “You know, we can get all the fancy new software and the newest gadgets and gizmos, but if the people who are operating them and doing the day-to-day aren’t being taken care of, it’s not going to do us much good.
"I’m very confident that this county will find the resources, and I’m very hopeful we will not have to raise any mileage. I can assure you, I’m going to be as diligent as I can be to dig in with [County Manager Adam Mestres] and the team and look at budgets as we come up to ensure that we don’t have to do that. But ultimately, we’ve got to take care of the people that take care of the county, that take care of us.”
District 4 Commissioner Philipp von Hanstein also spoke on the matter.
“Your people are your lifeline,” von Hanstein stressed. “That’s your most important resource that you have. We need to support the,m and we need to compensate them.”