Salary issues continue in Carbon County.

Last week, a former Carbon County employee wanted clarification after the salary board reset the salary for her position.

Dan and Wendy Smelas attended the county salary board meeting after a June 1 motion listed the office supervisor I in district magisterial court at $19.97 per hour and reset to $18.09 per hour.

Wendy, who worked as the office supervisor, was not making $19.97 per hour, rather $19.09 per hour, according to the couple.

“My concern is if this amount is wrong, it needs to be adjusted,” Dan Smelas said, noting the board owes Wendy an explanation.

“I’m one of the 22 employees that didn’t get a raise,” Wendy added. “It’s one of the reasons why I left when I did. So to read in the paper that I was making $19.97, I would like to know where that number came from because that was not what I was making.”

County administrator Eloise Ahner said that she could clarify the issue, citing a motion that passed 3-2 at the annual salary board meeting to set Wendy’s salary at $19.97 per hour, however the commissioners, in a 2-1 vote, chose not to fund these raises because they were over what the proposed wage scale was that was sent out to the courts.

The couple said it should have been noted somewhere that this was not the salary the employee was making when they left.

The commissioners said that this has been going on for a few months with salaries and the new wage scale.

Commissioner Rocky Ahner said all other departments except for the courts, which Smelas fell under, first accepted the proposed wage scale. The courts chose to make their own scale.

Because of this, those court positions stayed at the 2022 rates once the commissioners voted down funding the extra raises.

He said that the new wage scale is working now that it is in place because employees or department heads who feel that positions still need to be adjusted are appealing and updating job descriptions.

Ahner cited several actions the salary board took over the last few weeks on positions that went through the appeals process. Some were determined to either a grade upgrade or step upgrade, giving that position a higher salary.

Data office staff

For example, following the discussion, county Controller Mark Sverchek said that his fiscal/data office staff was justified in position changes and salary updates.

The board then approved establishing positions for a fiscal/data processing assistant I at $15.80 per hour, abolishing the position for a specialist at $14.69 per hour and moving that employee up to the higher position; as well as establishing a position for a fiscal/data processing assistant II at $17.42 per hour.

Human resources director Samantha Ciallella said that her office has approximately 70 appeals from either employees or department heads that she is working through.

Ciallella noted that the appeals are either contesting the grade in which the position is on, or the step in which the person was on.

“We are very glad we are going down this road with advocacy,” she said. “We are trying to get the people on the right track and this collaborative process is going to get everyone on the right track.”

Ahner stressed that employees will get what they should, even if it wasn’t immediately at the annual salary board at the beginning of the year, and noted that this process will work for the long-term.

“This system works that the old system that was in here didn’t work,” Ahner said, noting that the lowest paid employees were never benefiting enough from the 3% across the board raises, while the higher paid employees were getting good raises at that 3% increase.

“I’m trying to get it across to everybody. Why are we bucking this system that works? We’re not even given this second step a chance to come in,” Ahner said, adding that the HR department is doing a good job with the appeals and working through the second step of this new wage scale. “ ... I want to see everybody get a good salary.

“We’re going to address salaries throughout the year.”

One year later

Carbon County has been working on a new salary scale for over a year and introduced the new scale last December, in time for the annual salary board meeting in January.

At that time, all department heads, except the courts, requested approval of the proposed wages set in the new scale and then made additional requests after that exhibit was approved.

The courts, however, made motions for each positions on what they felt was the best salary for that position. These motions passed, but were later shot down after the commissioners chose not to fund the increases over what had been budgeted for the year.

Commissioners Ahner and Chris Lukasevich voted against the raises, while Commissioners’ Chairman Wayne Nothstein, as well as Sverchek and the department heads voted in favor of the additional raises.

Ahner had stressed that his no votes were not because he didn’t feel the raises were deserving, but that the new salary scale was the starting point at getting wages to where they should be for the workers.

Lukasevich has cited the need to be fiscally responsible to the taxpayers and not spend more than what was budgeted; while Nothstein said the county continues to lose good employees to surrounding counties because of higher wages outside of Carbon.

Since then, the county has started reviewing appeals and has made changes to a handful of positions that, once the job description was updated, proved should be on a higher grade or step on the scale.