Council votes on controversial raise

FORT WAYNE, IND. (WANE) - Is a roughly 20% pay raise too much for some government employees? Allen County Council was forced to take that issue to heart Tuesday afternoon when it comes to two positions.

Deb Morrone is the Allen County Voter Registration Democratic Board Member. Barry Schust is the Republican.

They're state-required positions and are full time. At issue is whether the two should receive a 20% pay raise. It would give them an additional $10,000 a year, taking them from roughly $45,000 a year to roughly $55,000.

"That is a lot of money I would agree, but it's not a raise that's out of the blue," Morrone said.

Democrat Morrone – along with her party – support the raise, saying it's overdue and that studies suggest it should even be more.

"The raise was scheduled to happen five years ago," said Morrone.

"Now is just not the right time," disagrees Schust.

Republican Schust – and his party – aren't in favor of it.

"It's not that I'm against it. The position I believe does warrant a salary adjustment, but I go back to this being an inappropriate time for it," Schust said.

The positions are appointed by the respective county party chairs, like Republican Steve Shine.

"I find it not only inappropriate for financial reasons, but ethically I have a problem," Shine said.

That's because Morrone also serves as the Vice Chairman of the Allen County Democratic Party.

"Republicans in county government [in the past year] all got raises of 3% and 29%. Almost all those names combined always show up in Republican donation reports. It wasn't unethical then, Steve's just playing politics now," said Kevin Knuth, Allen County Democratic Party Spokesperson and former Party Chair.

"My response is this is the only area where I was asked my input and I will reserve my comments to the area where I can have some input and some meaning into what happens. The only area in county government where that occurs is in voter registration," Shine said.

You may be asking, what do the Voter Registration officials do now that there's not an election? Both officials tell NewsChannel 15's Matt McCutcheon that they are busy maintaining and updating registrations while seeking more; and new this year, also handle remonstrance and petition drives.

In the end, County Council voted to do two different things, which basically denied the raise.

A motion was made to put the two positions on the county’s “Executive Grid and Scale” which basically serves as a recommendation and checklist for wages which provides ranges. The range for this particular classification is roughly $35,000 to $59,000. That motion was seconded and was unanimously approved.

County Councilwoman Maye Johnson then made a motion to accept the $10,000 pay request, taking the two positions to $55,000 each. That motion was not seconded, and therefore did not go for a vote because it died. So while the positions were placed on a new pay scale, their actual pay doesn’t really change at this time.

In a separate and less controversial issue, County Council also had to vote on placing the Allen County Director of Elections position on the Executive Grid and Scale.

The classification of that position means it should pay anywhere between $38,000 and $64,000. The Allen County Election Board gave the recommendation to County Council that they make the move to put the Director of Elections position on that scale.

That motion was seconded and unanimously apprived.  In the end, that position is expected to pay $52,000 to $53,000 which isn’t far off of what the position was expected to pay. However, moving it to the Executive Grid and Scale will benefit that employee later when it comes to issues like raises.