Salaries Set For Jefferson County Elected Officials

By Gordon HopkinsJefferson County Commissioners have held multiple meetings to discuss setting salary rates for elected officials starting in 2023. The county is required to set those salaries every four years.Commissioner Mark Schoenrock explained the twin goals of the county at a meeting on Tuesday, December 7, “The objective of this process should be for us to set a salary range where we can recruit and retain a quality workforce to best serve the citizens of Jefferson County, whilst doing so in a prudent manner, recognizing that whatever we set, this is tax money that's paid by the hard work of our Jefferson County residents. So I think our objective as commissioners is to find where that balance is.”The Nebraska Association of County Officials (NACO) has prepared salary recommendations for county officials that commissioners can use as a guideline, the Nebraska Association of County Officials (NACO) 2023-2026.“Now, this is a document that I have personal knowledge of, that a lot of hard work went into it, to set forth the findings of the study,” said Schoenrock.Jefferson County is characterized by NACO as a Category 2 County. According to the NACO study, the salary range for 2023 going forward is a minimum to $56,400 to a maximum of $78,500.Schoenrock noted, “And currently, Jefferson County would be at $58,421. So as you can see, we're down at the lower end of that range, that we're just above the minimum recommended salary.”Commissioners have previously discussed the difficulty in attracting workers to the area, most recently for law enforcement. It is not just the county that is having a hard time recruiting workers. The entire country is suffering from a labor shortage. That shortage is especially pronounced in Nebraska, which continues to break records in low unemployment. On Friday, December 17, Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts issued a statement that the state once again had the lowest unemployment rate in the U.S.,“Nebraska has beaten our own national record for the lowest unemployment rate—now at 1.8 percent.”Ricketts added, “This historic achievement is a sign of the unwavering resilience and work ethic that define us as Nebraskans. It’s clear for all of America to see: Nebraskans just don’t quit!”The downside of such low unemployment is the number of industries that cannot find needed workers.“So what I am looking at, from my perspective, is to get us somewhere so that we're mid-range of that,” said Schoenrock. “We don't want to be in the low end, because then we're not going to be able to recruit and retain quality people, but I don't want to be on the high end of it either.”There are some elected positions that are paid at a higher or lower rate, but that base pay scale is still used to determined those salaries. For example, NACO recommends commissioners be paid at 50 percent of the base salary, while the sheriff be paid at 125 to 140 percent.Part of the difficulty for commissioners is that the salary rate has to be set for four years. Michael Dux, currently the longest-serving commissioner on the board, said, “I want to say that, from day one, I thought this was one of the more difficult things that we have to do because you're setting salaries four years in the future. And I've never felt that was really a fair thing to the commissioners or to the elected officials. But that's the way the state statute is written.”Schoenrock noted, “We're seeing here this inflation rearing its ugly head here this year. It is going to make it challenging for us.”NACO also recommends that salaries be raised at least 3.8 percent in 2023 due to cost of living increases.Schoenrock said, “This came out even before the inflation rates started really getting out of hand.”As far a recruiting and retention, Schoenrock noted salary isn't the only factor.“I think probably one of our other challenges is for us to have people to realize the total compensation package, not just their salary, is the benefits. And I feel like we have a pretty darn good benefit package.”Schoenrock added, “The challenge is get people to see that. In my discussions with various people, I don't think they always think about that too much. Especially younger people.”At the following meeting on Tuesday, December 14, after further discussion, Schoenrock made a motion to set an initial raise of $6,000 for 2023 and the next three years at 3.5 percent. Schoenrock said, “At the end of that period in 2026, would put Jefferson County at 68 percent of the recommended range from the Nebraska Association of County Officials recently completed salary study.”The commissioners voted unanimously to approve the salary range. The also voted to set the sheriff's salary at 140 percent of the elected officials base salary.

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