After discussing and mulling over adjusting eight elected officials’ salaries since early September, county commissioners opted to put a hold on making any changes to salaries during their Monday, Oct. 27, work session.
Consequentially, the resolution to make any changes to elected officials’ salaries was completely pulled from the commissioners’ Oct. 28 meeting.
“I am personally pulling my support for any resolution change,” County Commissioner Mike Chapman said. “You try to do something that’s right and people think you’re doing it for your own personal gain.”
Having received comments from a dozen individuals criticizing his support to adjust the salaries at stake, Chapman said, “It isn’t worth it for me at this point.” Thus, until citizens or the charter review want a change, “we’ll live with what we have,” he said.
According to Clallam County Administrator Jim Jones, Clallam County is the last county in the state to have step increases for elected officials. Most other counties have decided by resolution the salary of their elected officials, Jones said. For example, Jones said Jefferson County has opted to follow the state’s salary commission and base their elected officials’ pay on some multiple of the state Legislature.
Without the support of Chapman, Commissioner Jim McEntire would be alone in his desire to adjust the 2008 resolution that would impact the salaries of the three county commissioners, sheriff, auditor, treasurer, assessor and director of the Department of Community Development.
“We elected folks who are hired by the people so I think it is incumbent that we take into account where the people are economically,” McEntire said during a early October interview with the Gazette. “For sure, cutting elected officials’ salaries won’t balance the budget, but it’s a way of acknowledging the fact that we need to start making changes to reach a balanced budget.”
Jones presented the commissioners with three varying resolutions in response to their request on Oct. 20 for a draft resolution that did not freeze salaries at different levels for returning vs. newly elected officials.
“I am willing to vote in favor of option 1c but if there’s no other support for the thing, then we could ask the administrator if he could bring back a resolution to establish a citizen salary commission,” McEntire said.
County Commissioner Mike Doherty cautioned that a salary commission can be “risky” and can “backfire” depending on the motivation and therefore urged the use of the Charter Review as the best option for taking a more deliberate approach to the evaluation of elected officials’ salaries.
Doherty also expressed concern with the lack of a public hearing and agreed with Chapman that is too close to elections to making such a change.
McEntire’s preferred option would freeze the commissioners annual salary at $67,848, the assessor, auditor, treasurer and DCD directors salary at $76,764 and the sheriff’s salary at $98,268. Combined, the changes in salaries would save an annual $136,357, or 0.44 percent of the county’s $31 million budget.
“I never did understand the criteria except for saving money, and as I’ve stated on the record, there are many other areas that we could have saved a lot more money that we don’t look into,” Doherty said. “I would be interested in talking about it more, but I didn’t see one that I could support.”
With lack of support and elections just around the corner on Nov. 4, the commissioners have foregone their opportunity to make any kind of change to elected officials’ salaries for the next four years.
“It’s just way too political right now to continue to discuss this,” Chapman said. “At some point maybe we can craft a letter early next year to see if it’s something the charter review would want to take a look at.”
Reach Alana Linderoth at alinderoth@sequimgazette.com.
