A plan to close pay disparities and bring all Lowndes County employees to at least a $15 per hour pay rate over three years won partial approval during Monday’s board of supervisors meeting.
The board voted 3-1 to provide 50-cent pay raises for 37 employees and 75-cent pay raises for 27 others — all of whom are making less than $15 per hour — effective immediately. The total cost to the county is $61,378, which includes benefits.
Board President Tripp Hairston, District 3 Supervisor John Holliman and District 5 Supervisor Leroy Brooks voted for the proposal, with District 1 Supervisor Harry Sanders opposed. District 4 Supervisor Jeff Smith did not attend.
“What you have is a 50-cent raise for employees who have been here from one to four years and 75 cents for people who have been here more than five years,” Brooks said. “People who have been here less than a year aren’t part of this.”
The lowest-paid county employee prior to Monday’s vote made $11.50 per hour. Federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour.
The board approved the amended proposal after County Administrator Jay Fisher confirmed that money already set aside for pay raises in the current budget would cover the additional pay for the current year.
“At the time the board was budgeting, there was money set aside to address two departments, justice court and E911, where the pay was the lowest,” Fisher said. “But I think the feeling then was that we didn’t have enough information on other departments, and the decision was made to wait until we knew more about those departments. That money hasn’t been distributed. So there is money to cover these costs if the board decides it wants to do this.”
Chief Financial Officer Lloyd Price said that $37,500 was put into the justice court and E911 budgets for pay raises that could be used for those approved Monday. The rest would cover qualifying employees across all other departments.
Brooks initially offered a plan for incremental raises over three years, citing that 79 of the county’s 348 employees (22.7 percent) currently earn less than $15 per hour.
Though he agreed Monday to a more limited plan, he hopes to continue discussions about raising the county worker minimum wage to $15 per hour as part of the budget process in 2022 and 2023.
Brooks said if the board ultimately approves that plan, the additional cost for 2022 would be $104,745 and $101,110 for 2023. The cumulative cost over the three-year period would be $267,242.
“What you would have over that time, is people coming off that list and other people coming on, like people who have reached one year of service,” Brooks said.
Sanders said he felt going to a county-wide $15 minimum wage as too high.
“What I don’t think a lot of people understand is our hospitalization (benefits),” Sanders said. “That works out to probably $3 to $4 per hour. That’s more than $600 per month. And with the pandemic, I think since we are self-insured, our hospitalization insurance is going to go up tremendously so that’s going to be even a greater benefit to the employee. If we wanted to get to $13.50 or $14, I could support that. I just think $15 per hour is a little high. I think there’s a lot of people in Congress and the Senate who think that, too.”
Brooks said he didn’t dispute the value of the benefits, but he said employees are often focused on the bottom line.
“What employees look at on payday is what’s in their paycheck,” Brooks said.
Hairston said he did not feel comfortable with approving the three-year plan.
“I think what we should do is look at it each year and budget time to see how the raises would impact the total budget,” he said. “I’m in favor of the raise for the rest of the year because the money is there. But we can’t say that for the upcoming years.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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