County Council debates public notice, advances 2026 budget, by Courtney Hughett, BCD.

County pay fix: New job system, fewer stipends, clearer raises, by Courtney Hughett, BCD

• • Their main message was that the current pay scale, from pay grade 1 to pay grade 35, doesn’t explain why one job pays more than another, so it has grown unevenly over time.
  • The firm urged the council to switch to a system that scores each job by what the work actually requires – skills, responsibility, and working conditions – and then places jobs into plain categories such as office support, road and trades, professional/technical, 911 and other civilian public-safety roles, non-elected department heads, and sheriff’s merit deputies.
  • Council members also talked through the price tag, which is $826,343, to get everyone to the ideal pay or the “external midpoint”. The consultants cautioned that those are wage costs only and benefits and payroll taxes would add roughly 20 percent on top. They also noted that not every dollar comes from the General Fund because some jobs are paid from highway, health, 911 and other special funds. The point, they said, is to set clear targets and phase in raises in a consistent way the county can afford, with priority given to the toughest hiring and retention needs.