Forty county positions will get substantial salary boosts next year, with one increasing by 19 pay grades.
The raises are coming under an ordinance approved Monday by the Board of County Commissioners. They are in response to a salary survey released in August showing that Island County workers make less than counterparts elsewhere.
“We’ve taken this step to … try to reduce turnover and compete in the labor market for the talent we need,” Commissioner Helen Price Johnson said during the commissioners’ weekly meeting.
The increases will cost a total of $247,000 in 2016. Thirty positions will jump by one pay grade, six by two grades, none by three grades, one by four grades and one each by 13, 14 and 19 grades.
The smallest scheduled increase, from grade 4 to grade 5 for a dock manager in the Public Works department, amounts to a $2,357 difference — increasing from $30,728 per year, or $14.77 per hour, to $33,085, or $15.91 per hour, using the midpoint figures for those salary grades.
The largest increase, from grade 18 to grade 37 for the District Court commissioner, amounts to a $39,441 difference — from $78,380 per year, or $37.68 per hour, to $117,821, or $56.64 per hour, again using the midpoint figure.
Each range includes low, midpoint and high figures, to allow adjustments reflecting seniority.
Three positions are slated for pay cuts the next time they open — two by one grade each, and one, an office manager in the sheriff’s department, by eight grades.
No current worker’s salary will be cut, the commissioners said.
In addition to the pay-grade increases, the 121 county workers not represented by unions or elected will get a one percent increase in their 2016 salaries. That increase will cost the county $60,000 in 2016.
The 40 workers getting pay-grade increases are all non-union members, though the salary survey included both union and non-union employees. The county is in salary negotiations with all six of the unions representing its employees, trying to raise salaries to competitive levels, Melanie Bacon, the county’s human resources director, said last week.
The salary survey revealed some large disparities between what some Island County employees and their counterparts elsewhere earn. For example, a deputy prosecutor II earns nearly $12,000 a year more outside of this county, the survey revealed.
