Benton County officials endorse new employees

BENTONVILLE — Benton County’s elected officials have about $1 million in personnel requests they want to include in the 2016 budget.

Barb Ludwig, human resources administrator, said elected officials met Thursday as the Job Evaluation and Salary Administration Program Committee to discuss and grade new positions and consider wage adjustments and departmental reorganizations. The group approved all of the requests, which now go to the Personnel Committee to be ranked in priority as part of the budget process. The first formal budget meeting is Oct. 15.

The committee also discussed raising the pay for elected officials, Ludwig said. Ludwig will present that information during the Personnel Committee as well. Benton County’s salaries for elected officials — county judge, sheriff, circuit clerk, treasurer, assessor, collector, clerk and coroner — are below the level set in the state’s two other largest counties and about 25 percent below the maximum pay set by the state, Ludwig said.

“We are below Pulaski County and Washington County, the two other class 7 counties, and we may be below Sebastian County, which is a class 6 county,” Ludwig said.

Benton County has addressed the issue of elected officials’ pay in past years, but has never adopted a plan for doing so routinely, Ludwig said. Instead, the issue becomes part of the budget process, competing with other budget requests, and gets caught up in the timing of county elections, she said.

“They tried setting the salaries in alternate years, so people will know what it is going to be when they file for office,” she said. “But then during the budget process the Quorum Court didn’t follow through with it.”

The state increases the minimum and maximum pay by 3 percent every year, so each year the pay is unchanged the officials fall further behind, Ludwig said.

“I’d like to see a process in place to give us some structure for this, some process in place,” she said. “It’s a contentious subject every time it’s brought up.”

County Judge Bob Clinard isn’t asking for a pay increase and he won’t raise the issue. Clinard said the personnel requests being made for departments under his management represent real needs. He pointed to the Information Technology Department and the Road Department as examples.

“You’d have to be living in a cave to not realize every single aspect of our lives, our businesses and our government is going high tech,” Clinard said. “So there’s a need for more people to allow them to do their jobs. There’s a lot of frustration when IT isn’t able to respond to one of our departments immediately. When you’re dealing with the public you have to be able to respond to their needs. So as far as the IT Department, we need more people. If we don’t get them the waiting list is going to get longer and longer.”

The Road Department also faces increasing demands, some fueled by growth and some by past neglect, Clinard said.

“We’ve got about 1,500 miles of roads and 60 people to maintain them,” he said. “The efficiency of the Road Department is directly related to manpower and equipment. We are getting more work in a day’s time out of the people we have, but they can only be stretched so thin. Our bridges are getting older. We’ve got a lot of roads that have been neglected for years. They need to be built up.”

Shirley Sandlin of District 8 serves on the JESAP Committee and is chairwoman of the Personnel Committee. Sandlin said elected officials should be prepared to fight for their personnel requests and also be prepared to make choices in their budgets if the Quorum Court puts limits on spending.

“They should start looking right now as to whether they want more people, more money for the people they’ve already got or equipment,” Sandlin said. “Those are choices they will need to make.”

Tom Allen of District 4, chairman of the Finance Committee, which also serves as the Budget Committee, said personnel requests will be considered in the budget process along with the county’s other needs.

“That’s a lot of money,” Allen said of the $1 million cost of the personnel requests. “We’ll just take a look and see what they’re asking for. It’s all in line with all of the other very expensive requests for vehicles and capital equipment we’ve already heard about. We’re having a healthy year with sales tax revenue and it looks like a healthy year for property taxes, but not that healthy.”