Island County commissioners are changing the salaries for the majority of elected county officials, but the increases won’t go into effect during their current terms in office.

The commissioners had a lively discussion about the reasoning behind the change during a workshop meeting last week and then adopted the resolution Tuesday.

Catherine Reed, director of Human Resources, explained that salaries for elected positions in county government are based on a percentage of the superior court judges’ salary, which is set by the state citizens’ commission on salaries for elected officials. The current superior court judge salary is $228,000 a year.

Two years ago, the commissioners increased the salaries for the county prosecutor and sheriff in order to be closer to parity with other counties. The sheriff earns 64.4% of the salary of a superior court judge. The prosecutor’s default salary is 92% of a judge’s salary, but then increases based on the number of terms in office; the state pays part of the prosecutor’s salary.

The new salary schedule increases the commissioners’ salary from the current 51.21% of the judges’ salary to 54.8%, which amounts to an increase from about $117,000 to $125,000. Salaries for the auditor, assessor, treasurer, clerk and coroner will increase from 46.09% to 49.59%, which is from about $105,000 to $113,000.

Ten years ago, the commissioners earned $83,000 a year.

Reed said the salaries won’t go into effect until each elected official’s next term. For the District 1 and 2 commissioners — who just won reelection — that will mean the beginning of 2025. For the others, the change won’t happen until 2027.

Reed said she wanted to make sure that the salaries comparisons between the elected officials were more equitable following the increase in the prosecutor and sheriff’s compensation hikes. She said she wanted to make sure the sheriff didn’t earn more than 10% more than the commissioners do.

Commissioner Jill Johnson suggested that the commissioners’ pay should be an even higher percentage.

“Yes, there are three of us, but that does not simplify the job,” she said, earning a hearty laugh from Commissioner Melanie Bacon.

The commissioners are responsible for setting and managing the county’s $140 million annual budget, and they directly oversee several of the county’s largest departments. Johnson pointed out that some of the elected officials, by comparison, are managing a single department with a single focus.

“I actually think that wage difference is not representative enough of what this job does,” she said. “Again, I’m concerned also about people thinking that this is like city council, right, like they think this is a part-time job without recognizing that you need CEO skills.”

In addition, Johnson argued that a consideration for the compensation rate should be the uncertainty of elected officials’ jobs since they have to run for office every four years. She said they can’t control their future the way other employees can.

Bacon agreed.

“My hope would be that when I do not run in four years that there would be really quality people who will not feel disincentivized by the pay for this job,” she said, adding that most people qualified for the job would take a pay cut and have to deal with “all the garbage of elections.”

“I would hope in future years really qualified people decide to run for this job,” she added.

Reed argued that the commissioners should earn as much or more than the people who report to them, but they don’t. She pointed out that she makes more money than the commissioners.

“That shouldn’t be the case,” she said.

Johnson, who admitted she was being snarky, suggested that commissioners should get the same per resident rate of pay as Oak Harbor Mayor Ronnie Wright, whose salary was more than doubled by a salary commission earlier this year. Reed said that was probably not a good idea.

Since the mayor earns $135,000 a year for a city of 25,000, commissioners for a county of 82,000 people would earn more than $540,000 a year at the same per capita rate.

Commissioner Janet St. Clair said she supports the salary changes but that she wants to revisit the issue of travel reimbursement for commissioners. She said driving from her home on Camano Island to Coupeville puts a lot of extra wear and tear on her vehicle, which isn’t fairly compensated by the county.

“I cross three county lines every day,” she said, adding that she puts 35,000 miles on her car a year.

“Before I choose to step down, I would want to make sure we have fair and equitable travel reimbursements,” she added.