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Walsh County commissioners agree to include commissioner COLA figure in preliminary budget
Summary
Commissioners debated whether to apply cost‑of‑living adjustments (COLA) to commissioner salaries and decided to place a COLA figure in the preliminary budget to preserve options for final adoption.
Walsh County commissioners debated whether to add a cost‑of‑living adjustment (COLA) for commissioners' pay during the special preliminary budget meeting on July 22.
One commissioner said they did not want or need a raise, while others favored maintaining historical practice of applying COLAs uniformly to county positions. After discussion the board directed staff to include a COLA figure for the commissioners’ line in the preliminary budget package rather than remove it; staff recorded the dollar figure discussed as $24,621.53.
Commissioners framed the decision as conservative budgeting: several members noted that adding the COLA number to the preliminary budget preserves the option to remove it before final adoption. “Put it in now because you can always drop it,” one commissioner said. Another said including the COLA promotes uniformity so no single commissioner is pressured to vote for a raise.
The committee did not adopt a permanent salary change during the meeting; the decision was limited to inserting the COLA figure into the preliminary budget for review during subsequent budget work sessions.
