“Constitutional Officers Compensation” has been on the Personnel and Finance Commmittee agenda for the last two meetings. What’s it all about?
WHO ARE CONSTITUTIONAL OFFICERS?
- Sheriff – serve four year terms
- Register of deeds – serve four year terms
- District attorney – serve four year terms
- Judge – serve for six years
- County clerk – serve four year terms
- Clerk of circuit court – serve two year terms
- Treasurer – serve four year terms
WHAT DO THE MINUTES SAY WAS DISCUSSED?
The January 27th minutes say this:
The committee discussed the constitutional officers compensation with staff, County Clerk McDonell and Register of Deeds Kristi Chlebowski. Staff will provide additional information at the next meeting.
The February 10th minutes only say this:
The committee discussed the constitutional officers compensation with staff, County Clerk McDonell and Register of Deed Kristi Chlebowski.
And there is nothing in the link to the agenda item.
WHAT DO YOU FIND IF YOU POKE AROUND A LITTLE?
A Forward Lookout reader was interested so I asked for copies of what was presented.
There were three documents prepared and shown at the Personnel and Finance Commitee meeting.
The most interesting information was this:
SO, ARE THEY THINKING ABOUT GIVING A RAISE? TO WHAT?
Looks like they are considering raises for the Register of Deeds, Treasurer and Clerk. When they did a comparison of salaries of other counties they found that these positions appear to be the highest paid in the state. Brown, Outagamie, Waukesha and Winnebago counties all pay $75,700 – 78,936. Milwaukee County has the second highest wages at $90,870. And then Dane County pays about $12,000-$27,000 higher than any other place in the state or 127-129% of the average.
Looks like they are considering giving the positions a of Clerk, Treasurer and Register of Deeds a $10,000 raise to $112,174 so they would be paid the same as the County Executive, and about 140% or more of what other people in Wisconsin in these same positions get paid.
WHY CONSIDER THIS NOW?
Just so happens those three positions are up for re-election in November . . . my guess is they have to set the pay before the election. And it’s just more ethical to set the pay for these offices when you don’t know who will be in them (prior to the election), instead of giving pay raises to your buddy who works down the hall.
WHAT’S NEXT?
Either this will be on another Personnel and Finance Committee meeting or a supervisor will bring forward an ordinance change with the pay raises. The minutes really don’t say and I keep having conflicts with showing up for this meeting. Stay tuned . . .
