Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Salaries Compensation topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Carroll County supervisors keep previously approved pay decisions after sheriff asks to reopen raises
Summary
After a sheriff asked the board to reduce his office's earlier raise request to 4% across the office, the Board of Supervisors voted to leave the previously approved salary and compensation decisions in place and not reopen the matter.
At a meeting of the Carroll County Board of Supervisors, members voted to leave in place the salary and compensation decisions they had approved earlier for fiscal year 2026 after a request from the sheriff to amend his office's approved raises.
The sheriff asked the board to change his earlier request and recommend a 4% raise across his office, with the chief deputy at 85% of that figure and deputies and jail and communications center staff moved to a uniform 4% increase. He said deputies agreed to lower their initial 5% request to 4% and that the change was intended to be "fair to everybody in my office." Board members debated whether reopening previously approved pay decisions would set a precedent and cited the thorough comparables and work that had gone into the original compensation recommendations.
The discussion noted that the county's current cost-of-living adjustment was 2.5%, that the sheriff had initially requested 10% and the Board of Supervisors had previously approved varying amounts for elected and nonunion staff, and that jail staff had received a 12% raise two years earlier. One supervisor referenced current debt on the jail, stating a figure of $10,674,750, and others said the county's prior comparables had informed their original votes.
After discussion, a motion to leave the approved salary and compensation actions unchanged passed on a roll call vote with Anderson, Hausman, Johnson, Miners and McCray recorded as voting yes. The board noted concerns from multiple supervisors that reopening approved raises could prompt repeated re-openings of other departments' compensation decisions.
Clarifying details recorded during the discussion: the county's baseline COLA referenced in the meeting was 2.5%; a deputy-level reduction from a previously approved 5% to the proposed 4% represented roughly a $770 annual change per deputy according to staff math presented in the meeting; court and budget considerations, and the certified budget deadline, were discussed as constraints on changing approved compensation.
The board moved on to the next agenda item after the unanimous vote to leave the prior salary and compensation actions intact.
