BY ANDY TAYLOR
chronicle@taylornews.org

INDEPENDENCE — A decision by the Montgomery County Commission in 2008 to grant pay increases to county employees — without money being provided in the 2009 budget to fund those pay hikes — is now being felt in the county courthouse.

Commissioners on Monday heard a report from Charlotte Scott-Schmidt, county clerk, regarding the status of county department budgets for the remainder of the 2009 budget year, which ends on Dec. 31. Scott-Schmidt said the larger county departments, including the sheriff and public works departments, were in jeopardy of going over their allotted  payrolls for 2009. The reason? In late 2008, then-commissioners Gene Tucker, Billie Lewark-Wood and Tony Fowler voted to authorize a $75 per month pay increase to county employees and department chiefs. That pay hike was followed by a 55 cent per hour increase for most county employees except for department chiefs and elected officials. The two pay increases averaged to a jump of 98 cents per hour for most county workers.

The decisions to grant the pay hikes came after the same commission, in its preparation for the 2009 budget, removed individual department pay hikes from the 2009 budget plan. Commissioners at that time removed those pay increases in an effort to hold the line on overall county spending.

Because the commission did not allow money in the 2009 budget for the employee pay hikes, even though the commission later authorized them, county departments are facing the prospects of going over budget for 2009, Scott-Schmidt said.

Scott-Schmidt said the solution to the payroll matter can be made by transferring money from other county funds into the county’s general operating fund to underwrite the costs of those pay hikes, which the commission agreed to do.

However, the fact that pay hikes were given by commissioners without money being used to fund them left a sour taste in the mouth of commissioner Tony Fowler, who was one of the three commissioners who voted in 2008 to authorize the salary increases.

“I’m not going to say anything that would be critical of the former county commission because I was among them,” said Fowler, in talking about the situation with fellow commissioners Fred Brown and Larry McManus, both of whom replaced Tucker and Lewark-Wood, respectively, in January.

Fowler said he would have likely questioned the prospects of overbugeted departments had he known in 2008 the impact of now budgeting additional dollars for the higher salaries.

In other business transacted at Monday’s Montgomery County Commission meeting, commissioners:

• offered the position of Montgomery County Fire Director to Mark McCleary, a former Montgomery County resident now living in New Strawn, Kan. McCleary was one of three finalists interviewed for the position, and the Montgomery County Rural Fire District #1 Board of Directors recommended to the commission that McCleary be offered the position.

• agreed to a recommendation from Troy Mackie, Montgomery County undersheriff, to purchase a 2010 Dodge Charger from Quality Motors of Independence at a cost of $25,760. Although the Quality Motors’ bid was about $800 higher than lower bids from an out-of-state firm, Mackie said he felt comfortable purchasing the vehicle from a local business rather than an out-of-state dealership.

The 2010 Dodge Charger is one of 10 cars that the sheriff’s department will acquire or lease as part of a car replacement program instituted by the department earlier in 2009.

Delivery of the 2010 Dodge Charger will be made in January or February 2010, Mackie said.