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MAYVILLE - A county law that is designed to give county managers raises tied to the Cost Of Living Adjustments has been updated, but only with Republican support.
During the Chautauqua County Legislature meeting, lawmakers voted 11-6 to update a local law relating to the management salary plan by providing for an annual adjustment of management salary ranges based upon the consumer price index.
The legislation states, "The County Legislature finds that maintaining current and competitive salary ranges within the Chautauqua County Management Salary Plan is necessary to support the recruitment and retention of qualified management personnel. The purpose of this Local Law is to establish an objective method for periodically adjusting the minimum and maximum salary levels assigned to management salary ranges based upon changes in economic conditions as measured by the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U).
"The adjustments authorized by this Local Law are intended solely to modify the salary ranges assigned to management titles and shall not be construed as granting compensation increases to individual officers or employees."
During a committee meeting the week before the vote, Human Resources Director Deborah Makowski said historically when salary ranges for managers were adjusted, only the top range was increased, but not the bottom. That created very large ranges for some new hires.
She said this updated local law was designed to target the minimum and maximum ranges tied to the Consumer Price Index, which is the most widely used measure of consumer inflation in the United States.
"Once the full year’s CPI-U is released, usually the second to third week in January, we would use that CPI percent increase and apply it to the minimum of the range and the maximum of the range," Makowski said.
But during the full legislature committee meeting, some Democratic legislators expressed concerns.
"When this first came to committee, I supported it because I saw the merit in some of this in this local law. I think our salary should be competitive and it would help with recruitment," Legislator Tom Nelson, D-Jamestown, said. "But after some more thought and research, I think the negative aspects of this may or do outweigh the positives."
Nelson said he is especially concerned about committing to increasing salary ranges every year regardless of the county's financial position.
"A year with declining revenue and a tight budget could be a real problem," he said.
Legislator Bob Bankoski, D-Dunkirk said the salary range issue is still a problem.
"We should get the salary ranges in check first before we do the COLA (Cost Of Living Adjustments) instead of giving the COLA before we get the salary ranges in check first," he said.
Along with Nelson and Bankoski, Democratic Legislators Marcus Buchanan of Dunkirk, Sandra Lewis of Fredonia, and Fred Larson and Bob Whitney, both of Jamestown, voted no. The 11 present Republicans at the meeting all voted in favor.