Last week, Habersham County commissioners voted to table a proposal for $1.2 million in pay raises for county employees so they could study the issue. Now, the commission chair has requested a meeting to move ahead with the matter.
At the request of chairman Bruce Palmer, the county has scheduled a called meeting for Thursday, December 1, to vote on the pay tables proposed by County Manager Alicia Vaughn. At the same time, the commission will vote on several new positions that Recreation Department Director Brooke Whitmire wants the county to create.
While it is likely the commission will vote to approve the pay raises given the 3-vote block Palmer leads with commissioners Ty Akins and Dustin Mealor, questions remain about how those pay tables were formulated.
Questions and comparisons
A comparison study by Now Habersham shows that many of the salaries proposed by Vaughn – based on a salary study and input from other county administrators and department heads – are out of line with similar pay scales for similarly populated counties in Georgia. The pay tables, especially for executive pay, are more consistent with pay in neighboring Hall County, which has a population nearly five times that of Habersham’s. In some cases, the top range salary proposed by Vaugh for Habersham County exceeds the top salary for similar positions in Hall.
“We have to consider the good of the employees, but we also have to consider the taxpayers.” – Habersham County Commissioner Bruce Harkness
County officials say the raises are necessary to make Habersham more competitive and to improve employee retention rates. All of the commissioners and many people in the community strongly support raising salaries for non-management and entry-level positions. However, questions continue to swirl around how much is being spent on management-level salaries.
Already this year, Habersham County has doled out over $400,000 in raises and benefits for seven new and existing positions, including the county manager, HR director, finance director, EMS director, public works director, newly-created assistant public works director, and county clerk.
The additional $1.2 million the commissioners will vote on Thursday would cover pay raises and cost of living adjustments (COLA) for the remaining approximately 500 employees.
In addition, Whitmire is requesting $180,000 to hire seven new positions at the county recreation department. Those positions include an aquatics manager, athletics manager, programs/special events manager, and four part-time parks supervisors. At the county commission meeting on November 21, Whitmire told commissioners the positions are needed to provide “better supervision at the Parks and Recreation facilities, better customer service, and bring athletics programs in-house.”
Fulfilling Whitmire’s request would require a budget amendment.
Some in the community have questioned the necessity of the new recreation department management positions given their apparent overlap with Whitmire’s job duties. Whitmire was hired three months ago and, like other recently-hired managers, will receive a significant pay raise if the county’s new pay tables are approved.
These pay raises come at a time when administrators have told taxpayers the county does not have enough money to fix roads and bridges, while simultaneously spending $80,000 to resurface tennis courts into pickleball courts and approving a $3.4 million loan to the county airport authority to build 24 new airplane hangars.
The airport expects to repay the county’s ARPA loan through rental income from the hangars.
Critics have accused the county of having a “spending problem.” It’s a criticism sharpened by the fact commissioners Palmer, Akins, and Mealor approved an unpopular property tax increase that added several million dollars to the county’s coffers. A sizeable portion of that money would be applied to pay for the proposed pay raises and new hires.
WATCH: Habersham County Commission’s Nov. 21, 2022, meeting
Supporting county employees and taxpayers
At their regularly scheduled meeting on November 21, commissioners Bruce Harkness, Ty Akins, and Jimmy Tench voted to table the proposals from Whitmire and Vaughn to allow more time to study them.
After doing so, Harkness says a local reporter called him an “obstructionist” and others have accused him of opposing pay raises for county employees. He insists neither is true.
“I have always supported our employees, and I’ve always supported pay raises for our employees, beginning with the very first month when I took office as county commissioner. But my asking to table the pay study was simply a request for us to be given time to look at it and study it. It is a very detailed document that is going to cost the taxpayers millions of dollars over the next few years, and I take those things very seriously,” Harkness says.
He continued, “We have to consider the good of the employees, but we also have to consider the taxpayers.”
Harkness echoes the concerns of many in the community who question how the pay study was devised.
“It looks like the lower-paid employees are not receiving a pay raise which compares to the top management of the county,” he says.
Harkness, an attorney, says he will be out of town for a trial on Thursday and may not be able to attend the called meeting. He says he notified Palmer and others of that, but they chose not to change the meeting date.
Still, Harkness says, he won’t let it deter him from asking the “tough” questions on behalf of taxpayers.
“I was elected to ask questions and to represent the working men and women and all of our citizens, so I plan to continue to ask the hard questions and try to get the answers for everyone.”
Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell has asked his staff to pack the county commission chambers in a show of force in hopes of a favorable outcome regarding pay raises for his deputies, the biggest of which would be a 25% increase for his chief deputy.
Thursday’s meeting is open to the public. It is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. in the jury assembly room at the Habersham County Courthouse located at 295 Llewellyn Street in Clarkesville. The meeting will be streamed live on the county website.
