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County revises merit-pay process to allocate pools to departments rather than individual council-set awards
Summary
Tooele County adopted Resolution 2026-09 to change annual performance-evaluation and merit increase procedures: the council will set a total merit pool, which department heads will distribute internally to employees, with separate pools to exclude department heads from employee allocations.
Tooele County staff presented and the council adopted Resolution 2026-09 on March 24, which amends section 6.7 of the county personnel policy manual governing annual performance evaluations and merit increases.
Under the revised approach county leaders will set an overall merit-fund total each year. That total will be distributed to departments as pools; department heads will then allocate merit pay within their department based on performance evaluations rather than the council assigning individual raises directly. County staff said the change aims to reduce score-clumping in evaluation results (previously many scores clustered at the same values) and give supervisors discretion to reward high performers while maintaining equitable pools. The policy also creates a separate pool for department heads so that awarding a high score to a head does not reduce the pool available for that department’s other employees.
Staff and council members described outreach to department directors and elected officials during drafting and noted clarifying conversations with the health department. Councilman Wardle and others framed the change as a way to recognize employees while improving accountability of managers.
The council moved and adopted the resolution at the March 24 meeting (motion by Councilman Hoffman; second by Councilman Hamner per the record).
