CACHE COUNTY – During their regular meeting on Nov. 26, the members of the Cache County Council backed away from making any decision on proposed adjustments to the salaries of certain county elected officials.
The council had been scheduled to hold a public hearing on salary adjustments listed in Ordinance 2024-22 at that gathering, but council member Barbara Tidwell recommended that their agenda be amended to postpone that discussion.
Council Chair David L. Erickson explained that due to a procedural change recently passed by the Utah Legislature, the council was required to provide additional public notice of that hearing to county residents.
During subsequent discussion of the proposed annual budget for Calendar Year 2025, however, the issue of salary increases for other county employees was discussed at length.
In her presentation to the council members, County Human Resources Director Amy Adams recommended that the council members consider a 3 percent across the board pay raise for most county employees.
The exception to that would be the County Sheriff’s office, where members of the County Compensation Committee recommended additional pay increases of 2 percent for deputies, 8 percent for sergeants and 2 percent for lieutenants.
The total price tag for the 3 percent increase for all employees would be $250,000 while the total of the committee’s recommendations – including those for the Sheriff’s Department – would amount to $725,000.
The county council was also asked to consider merit pay increases expected to cost between $390,000 and $560,000.
Adams told council members that these recommended pay increases were necessary for several reasons, including dealing with issues of pay compression.
That problem, she explained, is the result of new employees coming onto the county payroll at higher salary levels than existing employees.
The county council members dealt with that issue in the County Attorney’s office when they passed Resolution 2023-24 in November of last year. As originally written, that resolution would have raised the County Attorney’s salary from $158,185 to $167,676 in 2024. But the council members approved an amendment making the attorney’s salary $200,280 to address compensation compression in that office.
Adams added that Cache County needs to offer competitive salaries to attract and retain top talent in its work force and reminded council members that small salary and compensation adjustment are easier to budget for than drastic changes every few years.
Those suggestions and reminders pleased no one on the council, who are already considering a budget of $107.6 million along with the possibility of a 20 percent property tax increase for county residents.
That budget has yet to be finalized, however.
In a previous public hearing on the proposed tax increase, Erickson expressed hope that budget cuts and other economies could be found that would make the tax increase less onerous for county residents.
Toward that goal, Erickson circulated a list of what he considered “bloated budget items” to fellow council members to consider for cuts.
But while those proposed budget cuts would total in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, the 20 percent property tax increase is expected to raise revenues of more than $3.5 million.
County officials say the intended purpose of that tax increase to meet the costs of competitive wage increases, additional staffing, infrastructure projects and the inflationary costs of goods.
The next meeting of the Cache County Council is slated for Tuesday, Dec. 3.