Iron County considers wage increase for employees

By ZACHARY MARANO

zmarano@yourdailyglobe.com

Hurley — Staffing shortages were the driving force behind several items that the Iron County Finance Committee discussed at their monthly meeting on Thursday, including a possible wage raise for county employees for 2023.

Prior to the meeting, county supervisor Thomas Thompson asked that the wage raise be put on the agenda for discussion and possible action. Thompson said that he supported an increase in county employees’ wages, but he thought that the raises should be set by the department heads instead of the finance committee.

“I think people should get their raises on performance, not just everybody gets 25 cents or 50 cents. I think the harder worker should get more than the one just sits there and goes through the motions,” Thompson said.

Iron County Clerk Michael Saari said that if some county employees are only putting in a nominal effort, then their department heads are not doing enough to ensure that their employees perform their duties as assigned.

In response to Thompson saying that harder-working employees will think it’s unfair that they received the same raise as everyone else, Saari said it is impossible for them to satisfy all their employees. He said that if they are unhappy, they can always search for different jobs.

Director of Human Services Cally Bucknell said that in her experience as a department head, they need to strike a balance between overworking and underworking employees. She said that demanding too much from employees could simply worsen the situation.

“There’s always a balance between having work that needs to get done and having a person in that position, or I have a vacant position putting pressure on everybody else within the agency. There has to be that balance and it’s not an easy balance to do. Just by saying, ‘Make them do their job, otherwise they’re out’ – that’s not really the answer, in my opinion,” Bucknell said.

Bucknell also said that they received wage studies from the surrounding counties and found that their wages were not competitive.

Bucknell said the human services department’s performance evaluations are not connected to the wage scale, so staff do not have this incentive to do well on evaluations. She said that she and other department heads proposed a step-based system in the past, where employees would get promotions and raises for meeting certain requirements. She suggested the committee reconsider this model.

The committee agreed to put the wage raises on the agenda for their next meeting while they gathered more information, including the hiring, compensation and benefit packages of other comparable counties.

Forestry Administrator Eric Peterson said that at their previous meeting, the committee considered paying a limited-term employee at an overtime rate for working on a holiday. Peterson said that he reviewed the employee handbook and did not find reference to a maximum wage rate for limited-term employees.

Peterson said that the finance committee could amend the handbook to include a maximum wage rate or set the rate at their annual budget meetings. The committee agreed to think about this and put the item on the agenda for the next meeting.

The committee also:

—Recommended the purchase of a command post trailer for the Iron County Sheriff Department to the board of supervisors. Sheriff Paul Samardich said that the trailer is being offered at a reduced price of $60,569.

—Recommended donations to the organizations that participated in a search and rescue operation in Gurney for a missing person from Middleton, Wis. The woman was found dead near the Potato River Falls on April 3.