Pay raises for 5 elected county officials clear Quorum Court

Proposed pay raises for Pulaski County’s five elected officials sailed through the Quorum Court on Tuesday night with little discussion, but with three dissenters.

The raises were approved 10-3, with two officials absent. The raises to the county judge, sheriff, treasurer, assessor and clerk salaries are a new ceiling: 85 percent of the going market rate for each position. That rate was determined, for each person, by a 2017 study.

Supporters of the salary increases have previously said that higher pay will help attract competent candidates to those public service jobs. Also, Pulaski County is by far the largest county in the state and should be compensating as such, they argued.

Justices of the Peace Julie Blackwood, Teresa Coney and Staci Medlock voted against the measure. Justices of the Peace Doug Reed and Robert Green were absent at the time of the vote.

It’s not that the officials don’t deserve pay raises, Blackwood said after the meeting. However, she’d rather prioritize “the little guy” first, she said.

“It just seems like there’s a need for money elsewhere,” Medlock said.

Allowable pay ranges for county elected officials are set each year by state legislators and are based on county size.

Pulaski County is Class 7, the highest designation. Benton and Washington counties are the two other Class 7 counties, though Pulaski County’s population eclipses them by at least 100,000 people.

Last year in Washington County, the sheriff was paid the state mandated maximum: $122,033. The clerk was the next-highest-paid at $108,307. The county judge, assessor and treasurer salaries ranged between $97,800

and $99,800.

In Benton County, salaries ranged between about $91,900 to $97,600 for the five offices.

In comparison, in Pulaski County last year, County Judge Barry Hyde and Sheriff Doc Holladay were each paid $103,030, or 84.4 percent of their state maximum.

Circuit/County Clerk Larry Crane and Tax Collector/Treasurer Debra Buckner were each paid $90,784, which is 75.8 percent of the state maximum for Class 7 officials in dual positions. Assessor Janet Troutman Ward was paid $88,820 last year, 77.3 percent of the state maximum.

Instead of shifting those positions to the state mandated pay ceiling, the Quorum Court’s budget committee decided last week to advocate for pay raises based on a study conducted by the Johanson Group. The firm compared elected officials’ pay not only with the pay in other counties, but with pay in Little Rock and with state agencies.

The firm reported that all five Pulaski County officials were significantly underpaid against a competitive market. The firm also came up with a competitive rate for each job.

Passage of Tuesday’s ordinance, means Hyde, Holladay, Crane, Buckner and Ward’s offices will be paid 85 percent of their competitive market rates.

The annual pay for Hyde’s position will be $110,529 and for Holladay’s $111,875, making the sheriff the highest-paid elected official in Pulaski County. Crane will be paid $106,777, Buckner will be paid $105,572 and Ward will be paid $104,567, annually.

To make those salary increases happen, the ordinance appropriated about $51,580 total from three county funds.

Tuesday’s decision comes after the budget committee decided not to make salary adjustments for Prosecuting

Attorney Larry Jegley’s office.

Last week, Jegley asked the budget committee to adjust hiring salaries and some actual salaries for about 40 positions in his office. The jobs had been misjudged by the Johanson study, he argued, thus harming his ability to attract and retain employees.

The committee denied Jegley’s requests. In a letter addressed to Crane, Ward, Buckner and Holladay, the prosecuting attorney said the message sent by the budget

committee was “terrible, indefensible, discriminatory, inexcusable and defies logic.”

“I am not at all finished,” he wrote.