Council asks finance to prepare budget amendment limiting director/deputy raises to 9%; staff to implement 3%/2% across remaining employees

Wicomico County council members and staff discussed a wide-ranging set of salary and position-control items during a May 22 work session and asked staff to prepare a budget amendment that sets director and deputy director increases at 9 percent while retaining the countywide 3 percent (July) and 2 percent (January) increases for other staff.

Finance staff presented multiple scenarios. Council members expressed concern about recruitment and retention; staff cited recent departures where comparable jobs in neighboring counties—Somerset cited—offered substantially higher pay. The council asked for a narrower, immediately actionable amendment to reduce short-term fiscal impact while preserving targeted pay increases for senior managers.

Why it matters: compensation decisions affect the county’s ability to retain specialized staff, influence pension calculations, and change ongoing personnel costs that must be built into future budgets. Council members balanced the cost to the general fund against the operational risk of losing institutional knowledge.

Key points

- Targeted reductions: Staff proposed several alternatives; council asked staff to prepare an amendment that reduces the proposed increases for director and deputy director positions to 9 percent (from originally larger requests) while keeping other approved increases within the 3% (July) + 2% (January) schedule.

- Red-line employees and one-time bonuses: For employees who would otherwise exceed a pay scale maximum if the full increases were added (so-called "red-line" employees), staff outlined two options: (a) raise base salary where possible or (b) provide a one-time bonus equal to the difference. Council favored using a narrower approach to limit immediate budget impact; the session included discussion about giving one-time bonuses to avoid permanent pension-base increases for some positions.

- Budget impact: Staff estimated the general-fund impact of limiting the higher increases (director/deputy only) to be approximately $41,000. Including all employees above $60,000 at the higher percentage would raise the net impact to about $97,000; fully accelerating all increases into July (a one-time 5% rather than 3%+2%) would have a materially larger fiscal effect (staff gave an illustrative $269,000 figure for all-in July changes in the transcript).

- Implementation mechanics: Council asked staff to draft the amendment and the position-control changes for formal action and to return with a clear list of affected positions, whether changes are paid as salary or one-time bonus, and pension implications for each approach.

Quotes

"My suggestion would be that you only reduce the director and deputy director, which is a 41,000 impact to the general fund," Pam Olin, finance director, said when summarizing a narrower option. "That instead of reducing it by 97,000 for the employees to add the additional employees that are over $60,000."

"We have to pay them what they're worth," a department head said, urging retention of some higher targeted increases for specialized positions.

Follow-up actions and council direction

- Staff was directed to prepare a budget amendment with director and deputy director increases set at 9 percent and with the remaining county employees receiving the planned 3% in July and 2% in January (the "3+2" schedule). The amendment should also specify treatment for red-line employees (one-time bonus vs. salary adjustment) and the resulting position-control and pension implications.

Provenance

- topicintro: transcript excerpt when compensation discussion intensifies (transcript time ~5191.65): "Red line employees are employees that are not getting the full 3 plus 2..." - topfinish: direction to prepare the amendment (transcript time ~6184.23): "Prepare a budget amendment with director and deputy director at 9%."