With concerns over losing qualified candidates to other communities, elected Cole County officials, along with county department heads, plan to discuss employee salaries next month.
At Tuesday's County Commission meeting, county Finance Officer Debbie Malzner and county Auditor Kristen Berhorst said they had checked with other communities about their efforts to deal with employee salaries.
Malzner said Jefferson City is in the process of doing a salary study, looking at things such as job descriptions and qualifications.
Berhorst said St. Charles and Franklin counties have also just completed studies that could be referenced.
Western District Commissioner Kris Scheperle had brought up the salary issue, asking department heads and elected officials to look at what their counterparts in other similar-size communities have done.
In October 2011, the commission approved a plan to allow elected officeholders to abandon guidelines in a 2005 salary study used to determine employee compensation.
That plan, which has been in place since that time, calls for the officeholders to get a sum of money, allocated by the commission, for salaries. Once departments get that, the officeholder determines how the money is paid to their employees. Commissioners have called these merit raises.
Known as the "Archer Study," the 2005 plan was approved with the idea of increasing and equalizing salaries for non-elected county employees.
"It worked for the first year, but we found we didn't have the money to keep up with it," Malzner said.
Officials at the time said the flaw in the Archer Study was it assumed the county would be able to increase and adjust the schedule each year. It didn't take into account that if you had a bad financial year, there was no way to fix it.
Current county leaders say they like the merit pool idea, but Scheperle added, "We have to give a cost-of-living increase just to try to keep up with other communities."
Sheriff Greg White, who proposed a plan rejected by the commission for pay increases in his department, said they also need to look at salaries in Boone and Callaway counties since they are the closest competition in the job market.
"Last year, we lost 11 part-time and six full-time employees, and we lost two full-time employees this year, all due to salary issues," White said when the 2016 budget was approved. "Countywide, we are losing good people to other places because, while they say they like working here, there are other higher-paying jobs they can go to."