Supervisors Approve Pay Raises
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Yalobusha County EMA Director Stewart Spence was among department heads presenting budget requests to county supervisors on August 15. – Photo by Jack Gurner
WATER VALLEY – Supervisors wielded a figurative black marker to slash many requests for budget increases from department heads in the county following deliberations in a pair of lengthy county meetings. The cuts that will allow an across-the-board annual $1,800 raise for all full-time county employees and 75 cents per hour for 11 part-time county employees. The number crunching came during the August 7 and August 15 as work continues to set the budget and tax rate for the 2023-2024 fiscal year that starts in October.
The county’s projected revenue for the coming fiscal year is nudging $11 million and includes $118,595 in growth compared to the current fiscal year. This additional money is mostly attributable to new growth in the county that was added to the tax roll.
Supervisors are required to fund an additional $45,000 in mandated expenditures in the 2023-2024 fiscal year, leaving an estimated $73,000 of discretionary spending to field budget requests without raising taxes. The pay raises were unanimously approved by supervisors and will exhaust the remaining $73,000.
The discussion during almost seven hours of meetings often focused on how inflation impacts the taxpayers and county employees.
“I know that everything out there is going up,” Board President Cayce Washington stressed during the meetings.
“The people out there, the taxpayers, are suffering at the grocery store, suffering at the gas tank. We sure don’t want to raise taxes,” District 5 Supervisor Gaylon Gray agreed.
Department heads attending the budget meetings on August 7 and August 15 to share budget requests included:
• Sheriff Jerimaine Gooch requested an additional $23,000 for payroll to fund raises for deputies. He explained during the August 7 meeting that the starting pay for deputies is currently $34,000. He told supervisors that the starting pay needs to increase to $38,000 for non-certified deputies and $40,000 for certified deputies.
“That is the only way we are going to be able to keep somebody. I am not trying to compete with Oxford (police), because we can’t,” the sheriff added.
Gooch said the proposed boost would help retain deputies after they complete law enforcement training and become state certified.
Speaking in the August 15 meeting, Board President Washington noted that Gooch is within his budget for the sheriff’s department and jail for the current fiscal year.
“He is doing what he is supposed to be doing. He is living within his budget, it helped because we gave him an extra $100,000 last year,” Washington said.
“His request was to try and increase the pay for his individual deputies, but again we have it wiped out,” Washington said as supervisors ultimately denied requests from individual departments for raises and implement an across-the-board pay raise.
Other budget increases requested by the sheriff included $10,000 for fuel for his cruisers. The sheriff’s budget has long been recurring topic during annual budget meetings as the budget increases year after year.
“The problem with the sheriff’s department started long before I got here,” District 4 Supervisor Eddie Harris noted.
“And it will be here long after we leave here,” Washington added.
• Coroner Ronnie Stark requested a $400 monthly salary increase. Stark explained that supervisors currently set his monthly pay at $850 per month and state statue allows the coroner to earn up to $1,250 per month.
“I do this job and stay under my budget each year,” Stark explained. “I am on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.”
Washington noted that supervisors funded a monthly $300 salary for deputy coroner Debbie Jackson during the 2022-2023 fiscal year. The salary for the deputy coroner stemmed from a new state mandate and marked the first time a deputy salary in the county earned a monthly salary. Stark also receives $175 per call he responds too, as does the deputy coroner.
“Are you and Debbie handling all the calls, or we still having to go outside the county for some coroner calls?” Washington asked.
“Sometimes area coroners help each other out. Sometimes the Grenada coroner may come do a call here, or I may do a call in an adjoining county,” Stark answered.
“I still see a lot of names come across from Grenada County from time to time to handle deaths. I don’t know if that is because the bridge is out, but it is still part of Yalobusha County,” Washington said.
“We help each other out, I go to calls in Grenada County. I did one in Tallahatchie County last week,” Stark explained.
“I guess I see an opportunity to earn $175 for coroner calls, but that opportunity is missed if we are not making calls,” Washington said.
“What you are paying them is $175 per call that I would get paid, so there is no extra cost to the county,” Stark countered.
“I see an opportunity to increase the salary by making all of the coroner calls,” Washington said.
“This is a full-time job with part-time pay. You cannot make a living with this salary just doing this salary. You have to work another job. If I am working and Debbie is working, we get help from another coroner. That is the way it works in other counties too,” Stark stressed.
• EMA Director Stewart Spence requested a $4,800 increase for salaries to be divided between him and deputy EMA Director Jarred Logan. The requested raises would be $200 per month for each employee, the same raise that all full-time county employees received last October with the adoption of the 2022-2023 fiscal year budget. Spence and Logan did not receive the raise as they were considered part-time employees by county supervisors. They were hired in March, 2022, and earn $21,500 each, splitting the salary paid to former EMA directors.
“You can’t put all part-time employees in the same category. Y’all hire part-time employees for part-time positions who work a set amount of hours and they go home. We are two part-time employees fulfilling a full-time position. We are on-call 24-7, 365 days a year and we get paid for four hours per day. We fill like we should be grouped with full-time employees,” Spence said.Spence also shared other budget requests that included small increases that ranged from diesel fuel and repair parts to hazardous supplies and training for a total increase of $31,407 in the coming fiscal year.
Supervisor Washington countered that many of the line items in the current fiscal year budget have not been spent and questioned why increases are requested for the coming year.
“Basically what I am saying is that you still have line items with the exception of diesel and repairs that has not been used,” Washington said.
Spence said that expenditures in some of the line items had been curtailed to compensate for overages in other areas of the budget.
“If you look at the total budget, we are right at budget and hopefully will stay under budget at the end of the year,” Spence said.
• Spence also presented a request in his separate 911 budget that included $41,103 for dispatchers. He explained the increase was not for raises, but to fill vacant positions.
“We are short three full-time dispatchers,” Spence explained, adding the existing dispatchers often receive many hours of overtime each month.
• Coffeeville resident and library supporter Brad Ayers told supervisors that the Yalobusha County Library System that operates libraries in Oakland and Coffeeville is requesting a $10,073 increase. The requested increase is to increase funding for the director’s position in anticipation of current director Patty Bailey’s retirement. The new director will be required to have a master’s degree in accordance with state regulations and the position will require a higher pay rate.
These budget requests and others from department heads were not approved by supervisors. The next step in the budget process is a public hearing in September seeking input on the proposed budget. The date of the hearing will be advertised in the North Mississippi Herald two times.
