Washington County chair tells salary commission role is full time, urges raising commissioner pay to broaden candidate pool

Catherine Harrington, chair of the Washington County Board of Commissioners, told the county’s Salary Commission during a June interview that the workload for county elected officials has increased and that commissioner pay should rise to attract younger, full‑time candidates.

Harrington said the county’s demands — including budget pressure, oversight of Clean Water Services and a growing list of state and regional mandates — mean commissioners must act like executive‑level officials. "Right now, during this time frame between April and June, I probably average ... 50 to 55 hours a week," Harrington said. "It's a big job during budget time. It's a tremendously big job."

She urged the Salary Commission to consider raising district commissioners' pay so candidates would not need another job to serve. "To me, the district commissioners should be paid that," Harrington said, referring to a benchmark tied to judicial pay. She noted that circuit court judges' salaries are now above $185,000 and that the prior formula (the chair at 80 percent of that figure) would have put the chair near $148,000. Harrington said she is primarily concerned with raising district commissioner salaries to make the roles feasible for people in their 30s and 40s.

Harrington described specific duties and examples of the expanding role: she said commissioners effectively oversee three senior positions (the Clean Water Services general manager/CEO, the county CAO and county counsel) and increasingly act as public faces for complex county programs. She cited her own involvement in public safety and workforce development, saying she attends patrol briefings and meets monthly with sheriff’s leadership and serves on Metro committees and the regional waste advisory committee. She also described advocacy on behavioral health and said she supported bringing body‑worn cameras and taser upgrades into the sheriff’s office.

On governance and outside limits, Harrington told the commission that Oregon law constrains compensation for special district board members — "the Oregon rules for compensation for service district board members is very limited, at most $50 a day," she said — and she pointed to Measure 34 (2021) as the ballot measure that moved the county from a prior circuit‑judge‑percent formula to a salary commission process. She also described the county's current budget constraints, the removal of a prior $20,000 annual discretionary fund for commissioners that had been used to support community groups, and the pressure to consider local revenue options such as local option levies.

Harrington said staffing and communications capacity are stretched. She told the Salary Commission she worries that staff assistants who support commissioners are overburdened (in some cases supporting two commissioners) and that the county needs more communications support for public outreach. She urged the commission to keep in mind how pay affects the pool of potential candidates and the county's ability to recruit people who can serve full time.

The interview was part of the Salary Commission's review of comparator data, salary structure and potential recommendations to the board. Harrington answered follow‑up questions about time commitment, committee assignments and the evolving scope of county duties during the session.

Harrington concluded by saying she plans to retire in the near term and stressed she wants to leave the county with governance and compensation structures that can sustain the workload for future commissioners.

The commission did not make a salary decision during the interview; the session continued with administrative matters and scheduling.