The Fisher County Commissioners met in a special-called meeting on Friday, where the court heard from upset officials and citizens before getting to the six items on the morning’s agenda. Whereupon they took little action, leaving discussions about employee pay raises until September 14, the day commissioners are expected to adopt this year’s budget.
Although While early budget preparations began in March, and the first draft was up for review in June, the commissioners chose to skip discussions regarding the budget until July, only to stir up controversy over county jail operations. The new Fisher County Law Enforcement Center is less than five years old, and has faced challenges with maintaining the necessary staffing to meet state guidelines.
The court debated over the most cost-
Fisher County Law Enforcement Center is less than five years old, and has faced challenges with maintaining the necessary staffing to meet state guidelines.
The court debated over the most cost-effective way of budgeting for the facility during the upcoming year. The Jail depopulated in March and is currently housing local inmates in neighboring Scurry County. Operating on a reduced staff since that time, the department will begin filling vacancies in the months to come with the goal to reopen in 2021.
Low jailer pay has been cited as the reason for high turnover rates at the facility since opening, and the court also considered — and ultimately approved — a two dollar an hour raise for jailers and the Judge’s assistant and a one-dollar increase for all other courthouse assistants.
Debates over granting salary increases led to arguments between elected officials across departments and a long-running and largely futile attempt to force all offices to adopt uniform hours of operation. The situation yielded comments from the court that officials raised objection with and spoke out against during a special-called court meeting last week.
In her statement to the court, Fisher County Tax Assessor-Collector Jonnye Lu Gibson explained that after 16 years serving the county, she believes she has adopted a set of hours preferred by a majority of customers. She reminded the court that assisting those customers is not the only function of her office and there are numerous documents and reports employees must also attend to during their workday.
She, like other county officials, was resentful of comments commissioners made about a problem at the courthouse and the court’s unwillingness to reward bad behavior. “If my office displays such ‘bad behavior,’ why is it that we’ve had people buy homes here for their future retirement tell us they are going to change their residency to Fisher County because they are so please with how we treat them?” asked Gibson.
She added that it must have been her office’s bad behavior that caused a business owner to begin conducting all business transactions through her office, generating near $20,000 for the county so for this year. Gibson also reported her office brought in near $212,000 since 2019.
The Assessor-Collector’s office was not the only department to make a statement in response to the court’s recent decisions and the discussions surrounding them. Fisher County Sheriff Allen Arnwine said deputies also raised issue with the “bad behavior” comment.
“They took that as a slap in the face,” said Arnwine, explaining that since the court did not include pay increases for deputies along with the jailers, county deputies said it appears the court questions their behavior. Arnwine spoke out in support of his deputies, saying his deputies “make good decisions,” when those decisions can end with the deputy going to court, prison, or the grave.
The court reviewed and clarified its recent vote to approve specified salary increases this year, officially determining that the jail administrator position was also a jailer and should be included in the two-dollar-per-hour wage increase the court granted last month.
Sheriff Arnwine pointed out that the jail administrator holds the same qualifications as any jailer and is often required to perform those duties when scheduling issues arise. “She is more than qualified,” said Arnwine. “If she doesn’t get this raise, there is no difference in pay between the jailer and the jail administrator.”
The court voted in favor of including the jail administrator in the raises, with the exception of Commissioner Preston Martin, who voted against the motion. Martin also voted against the salary increases last month, and said last week he would like the court to reconsider granting all recently approved raises, but that discussion failed to gain much traction.
Although the court did not dig into reopening prior salary discussions, Commissioner Kevin Stuart did propose the court consider also granting raises to the commissioners’ road hands. However, Fisher County Judge Ken Holt warned that by increasing those salaries, the road foreman could be earning a higher wage than elected officials.
Holt said there is simply not enough time to adjust the officials’ pay, as increases to elected officials’ salaries must be published in the local newspaper. While the court can amend the proposed budget before adopting it, there is not enough time to make adjustments for elected officials.
“It has to be posted for an increase, but if there is no increase it doesn’t have to be published,” said Martin. “So we can do away with all of those raises can’t we?”
Before the court approves adopting an official budget for the upcoming year, Martin said the issues related to salary need to be hashed out. Stuart agreed with Martin, saying he didn’t believe the budget would pass with its current structure.
The court set a tax rate that is not expected to generate additional tax revenue this year, leaning heavily on the additional $500K in payments from wind farms to support budget increases. Yet as commissioners have already approved roughly $700K in additional expenses this year, it is unknown how another round of salary increases will affect the budget’s bottom line.
Commissioners are not scheduled to meet again until September 14, when the court is expected to make any last-minute amendments before determining how the current $5.2 million in public funds will be spent in 2021.