There have not been any applicants yet for the county's new financial coordinator. The application period was supposed to close this week but on Monday commissioners extended the application period through Sept. 17th and they raised the annual salary for the position from $70,000 up to $75,000 per year. They also plan to offer a two-year contract.
Trish Giordano, Commission Chair, felt that was a good way to go. "There's some job security when a person's coming in to start a whole new department, and there are several employees that don't want this financial person, and so I think it's a good deal."
Giordano stated that she thought that there were a couple of places where the advertising should have been placed, and that will be dealt with. "And then upping the starting salary to $75,000 even though I feel that's a little low, but at least that's a starting salary and we can negotiate pending on experience." Giordano had supported increasing the salary to $80,000.
Commissioner Keith Ascher voted against raising the salary to $75,000, and noted that there have been no applicants for the position. "The consultant that we paid roughly $12,000 to help with this basically said well we need to increase the salary. But I pulled up through HR and we've got some really longtime employees that aren't even making the $80,000 that he was asking for." Ascher added that he didn't think it was fair to the long time employees.
Ascher addressed the salary increase and said it doesn't make sense. "Quite frankly where does it stop. If you don't continue not to get applicants they're just going to throw money out there."
Ascher said the consultant prepared the job description and the county's new HR person who only recently joined the county, rewrote the entire job description. " We set the price range for salary, and at the end of the day I just thought we could have done this all in house so what are paying this person for, just for advertising the job." Ascher commented that was his basis for voting against the salary increase.