Washington County salary commission reviews comparator methods, schedules interviews with commissioners

The Washington County Salary Commission on May 6 reviewed prior salary-commission reports and external comparator data, clarified that its charter and bylaws limit the commission to setting base salaries only, and agreed to interview county elected officials before finalizing recommendations.

Mary Rowe, a former Multnomah County human-resources director invited as a resource, walked commissioners through how Multnomah’s commission produced a narrative-style report and how it handled comparators and cost-of-living adjustments (COLA). “In that report, you will see that, their county salary commission is charged with coming up with the salaries for all the elected officials,” Rowe said, drawing a contrast with Washington County’s narrower scope.

The commission discussed several technical issues that will shape its recommendation: whether to use internal county positions or external counties/cities as comparators; how to treat outliers such as counties that list part-time roles; whether to apply geographic cost-of-living adjustments; and whether stipends or reimbursements (for car, phone, etc.) shown in some comparator tables should be treated as part of base salary.