Raises recommended for county commissioners

Stipend increases for other positions also suggested

The Charles County Board of Commissioners could see its first pay raise in nearly a decade if the state legislature accepts the recommendations of a commission tasked with reviewing the compensation of select county positions.

The 2017 Compensation Commission presented its recommendations for commissioner salaries as well as stipends for orphans’ court judges and the county’s four citizen boards and commissions on Tuesday.

The current salary for the commissioners’ president is $58,000 a year. Each of the four district commissioners currently earns $48,000 annually.

The commission is recommending that the salaries be increased to $59,160 and $48,960 respectively in the fiscal year beginning in mid-2018, with annual increases of 2 percent through the 2022 fiscal year, to $62,781 and $51,957 respectively.

Of the 13 Maryland counties governed by a board of county commissioners, Charles County’s commissioner salaries are the highest.

According to the Maryland Association of Counties’ annual salary survey, the next-highest-paying county is Carroll County, which compensates its commissioners’ president and its four commissioners $45,000 a year, a rate set by the state legislature.

The annual salary for the Calvert County commissioners’ president is $44,500; its four commissioners receive $42,000.

In St. Mary’s County, the salaries are $44,303 and $39,152 respectively.

The current salaries of the board of county commissioners were set in 2010.

In 2013, the last time the compensation commission met, the county commissioners declined to enact the commission’s recommendation to raise the commissioners’ president’s salary by $28,000 over four years and increase the other commissioner seats by nearly $24,000 over the same period.

The five-member compensation commission convenes every four years. It makes recommendations on whether increases are merited based on a review of the county’s fiscal posture, population, tax rate, budget and number of employees.

The commission is also recommending incremental increases for orphans’ court judges and citizen members of the board of appeals, board of electrical examiners, board of license commissioners, and the planning commission.

“What this does is bring Charles County in line with other like counties in the area,” said Travis Wright, the commission’s chair.

Commissioner Ken Robinson (D) praised the commission’s report as “realistic.”

“I’m very comfortable with the recommendations,” Robinson said.

The board of county commissioners will now decide whether to forward the recommendations to the county’s state delegation for inclusion in its legislative package for the upcoming General Assembly session that begins in Januar y.

Also during Tuesday’s open session, county planning and growth management staff briefed the commissioners on progress implementing a new software system for managing the county’s permitting process.

The new EnerGov software will make it easier for county residents to apply for permits, monitor their status and pay for them using a single, intuitive interface.

County planning director Steve Kaii-Ziegler said that the process of implementing the new software, which began last year, was on budget and ahead of schedule.

If ever ything remains on track, he said, the county should be ready to debut the new system to the public next November.

Kaii-Ziegler described the current permitting software system as “woefully out of date.”

The new system will allow site plans to be shared electronically, which should speed up the review and approval process significantly. Ziegler assured the commissioners that the county will continue to accept paper plans for some time after the rollout of the new system.