Elected officials bring concerns over raises to budget committee

The Madison County Commission’s budget committee met on Wednesday, June 5, to go over a few last-minute items before the June Commission meeting as well as the annual budget that needs to be ratified before June 30.

County Trustee Billy Burkhead and Mayor A.J. Massey brought questions to the committee when they asked about trying to get their employees larger raises than what the committee approved for all departments.

Each department received a 3% increase for each of their overall payrolls, leaving each department head to decide how to allocate those extra funds within their departments.

But Burkhead had asked for larger increases for his deputy and bookkeeper, while Massey had asked for larger raises for Deputy Mayor/HR Director Terica Smith and another employee who has 25 years of service in the Mayor’s office.

According to both elected officials, neither of their raises were approved, and neither of them ever heard any kind of feedback from anyone on the budget committee.

“I want to know what I need to do to try to get these raises for these employees,” Burkhead asked.

Budget committee member Gary Deaton at first said there’s nothing that could be done since the budget had been completed and sent to the commissioners for their review before the June 17 meeting and has been set to publish before the meeting.

After a few minutes of discussing involving County Attorney Jay Bush, it was agreed upon that the committee could recommend a possible revision to the budget before voting on its approval.

The committee wanted to know if Burkhead had any reasoning for the raise other than to elevate his employees’ pay, to which he said the added revenue his office is generating through investments of the County’s money requires more paperwork for his office along with having replaced a full-time position last year with a part-time worker.

Burkhead and Massey’s foundational question was why three departments – maintenance, fire department and the county commission’s secretary – allowed for larger raises and no other department was allowed.

While no one on the committee gave an actual answer to the question, Massey said he and Burkhead are the only two who feel like they can ask the question.

“Trustee Burkhead and I are elected officials, so we can ask questions that other department heads don’t feel like they can ask,” Massey said. “But this needs to be addressed so we know the rules coming into this process.”

Commissioner Tony Black isn’t on the committee but was present and called for consistency in the process.

“It’s not right for this person in this department to make this much, and the same position in another department making a much larger amount,” Black said. “The system needs to be standardized so it can have consistency in determining how raises like this are allocated and done in a fair way.”

Burkhead and Massey were encouraged to bring their questions before the full body of commissioners on June 17 to possibly get their people their desired raises.

The Commission will go over the budget for the first reading at that meeting. Assuming they will approve the first reading then, they will meet again on the evening of June 28 for the second reading to officially approve the budget before the June 30 deadline.

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news