Kootenai County approves $12,088.13 in retroactive longevity pay for Sheriff's Office positions

Kootenai County commissioners voted May 15 to approve a lump-sum retroactive payment totaling $12,088.13 to cover missed longevity pay for several Sheriff's Office positions.

Marsha Hegley of the Sheriff's Office told the board, "Commissioners, I'm coming before you today to request some retro pay for some longevity pay that was missed earlier in this fiscal year...a sum of $12,088.13, which would get them caught up through pay period 10." Human Resources staff confirmed the underpayment had been verified and said the auditor's office helped set up a report to prevent similar oversights in the future.

The board approved the payment as a lump sum rather than recalculating each affected paycheck. Commissioners voted unanimously: Commissioner Eberline, Commissioner Duncan and Chair Metari all recorded "Aye." The motion carried.

The payment was presented as a correction for a prior implementation error in the county's longevity-pay process; HR said systems and reporting changes have been put in place to help prevent recurrence. The positions were read from the agenda in spoken form and recorded on the public record as the position numbers listed on the agenda (transcribed as "30Four-seventeen, 30Four-seven, 30Four-four and 303001"). The payroll department supplied the projected total used for the request.

The board did not change any other payroll policy during the vote; the action approved only the retroactive lump-sum payment identified in the request. The county will implement the auditor/HR reporting fix described on the record to reduce the risk of future missed longevity payments.