Take politics out of county official paychecks

Voters in the Aug. 2 Shelby County election not only will elect a new mayor, sheriff, trustee, assessor, register and clerk.

They will decide how much those new county officials will be paid.

Way down at the bottom of the extensive ballot – below all of the state and federal primary candidates, county general election candidates and special city election candidates – is a County Charter Amendment Referendum.

Few voters will take the time – or have the time – to read and decipher the 401 words of legalese about amending the county charter to conform with Tennessee Code Annotated Section 824-102 before voting YES or NO.

That’s a shame because voting YES or NO on the charter amendment will decide what the newly elected county officials will be paid and how those salaries will be set going forward. Here’s why. With nearly a million people, Shelby County is, by far, the state’s largest county. Our population is a third larger than Davidson County’s and more than double Knox County’s.

And yet nearly all Shelby County officials -- mayor, sheriff, assessor, trustee, register and clerk -- make thousands of dollars less per year than their counterparts in those other counties, including Hamilton.

The only exceptions are Shelby County commissioners, who make

Last year, only five commissioners voted in favor of a proposal to raise the salaries of all six countywide officials . The mayor’s salary, for example, would have increased to $172,100 starting Sept. 1.

The commission did agree later to increase the next sheriff’s salary from $116,955 to $135,575 beginning Sept. 1. That’s still tens of thousands of dollars less than the sheriff of Davidson County ($161,845) and Knox County ($159,174).

It’s also lower than the state’s minimum salary of $144,863 for big-county sheriffs.

The four other elected county officers haven’t had a raise in 12 years (other than a cost-of-living adjustment in 2010).

We support home rule and fiscal responsibility. But it doesn’t make sense – fiscal or otherwise – for the men and women we elect to run the state’s largest, most complicated and diverse county to get paid so much less than those in other, smaller, more homogeneous counties.

Our elected county commissioners, who represents more narrow constituencies, shouldn’t be expected to make apolitical decisions about the salaries of other elected officials.

Let’s take the politics out of the paychecks we give the six administrators who run county government.