Mark Gorbett
The Bartholomew County Council has approved a 6.5% total raise this year for more than 400 county employees – the same increase given to Columbus City workers for this year.
In addition to the 3.5% pay hike approved last fall for the 2023 budget, the Bartholomew County Council approved an additional 3% salary increase Tuesday night. Full-time, part-time and Solid Waste Management employees will receive the latest raise, which is retroactive to the beginning of the year.
The cost of raising the salaries is $735,000, which includes contributions to the Public Employee’s Retirement Fund (PERF) and the FICA federal payroll tax, three-term council member Mark Gorbett said.
The council vote was 4-2, with Bill Lentz and Evelyn Pence casting the only no votes. Council member Matt Miller was not present at the meeting.
“What we are doing with this 3% is correcting what should have been done during last year’s budget,” council president Jorge Morales said.
A few years ago, council members were arguing about the validity of a wage study by consultant Kent Irwin. It showed many county employees are underpaid when compared to their counterparts in many other Indiana counties. But Miller and former council member Greg Duke said Irwin’s firm made too many mistakes, casting doubt on the validity of the study.
When inflation started to become a prominent factor, Morales and fellow council member Mark Gorbett were advocating for a 5% salary increase in the 2023 budget.
“Every topic of conversation that I was present at would turn to getting our employees’ paychecks up and being competitive in the market,” Gorbett said.
But due to the opposition, the increase was capped at 3.5% when this year’s budget was adopted last October.
It wasn’t long before the council learned that Bartholomew County government had lost 25% of its workers in 2022.
With the election of freshmen council members Greg Patterson and Leah Buyer, the make-up of the council was changed enough that an additional 3% raise was finally approved, Gorbett said.
Lentz said he was for last night’s increase until the council received an unusually high number of funding requests during a recent work session.
“If you give everything requested, there won’t be any money left,” Lentz said.
He also expressed concern that a large property tax increase should be expected later this year.
A new study projects homeowners’ bills payable this year in Indiana could increase as much as 15%. That’s more than double what previous reports had estimated.
Lentz said he also continues to worry that inflation is going to get worse, and believes more funds should be used toward paying off bonds.
”Suppose inflation is higher than the property tax growth quotient,” Lentz asked. “And then you hire a lot of new programs and employees.”
In response, Gorbett reminded Lentz the county had more than $2 million in surplus last year. In addition, the council had set aside $1 million for employee raises in 2021.
In addressing another of Lentz’s concerns, Morales said we now have a 6.4% inflationary rate – much improved from the 8.5% rate earlier this year. National figures shows inflation has decreased for six months in a row.
Gorbett agreed there were a large number of additional funding requests and emphasized the council will have to make priorities in spending.
“But taking care of employees should be top priority,” Gorbett said. “Under extraordinary times, we need to so some extraordinary things. We need to stop putting Band-Aids on problems and fix them.”
