The Sherburne County Board Tuesday set the salaries for elected officials for 2019.
Rather than a straight across-the-board percentage increase like in prior years, the four elected officials made individual requests based on comparisons to similar positions in other counties.
Administrator Steve Taylor said the criteria included a spreadsheet of 12 comparable counties with the goal of obtaining a market average.
“Each fulltime elected official has also included background information supporting their proposed wage adjustments,” said Taylor.
The adjusted salaries for elected officials from 2018 to 2019 are as follows:
Sheriff Joel Brott, from $148,266 to $160,991; County Attorney Kathleen Heaney, from $147,285 to $160,756; Auditor/ Treasurer Diane Arnold, from $105,919 to $113,333; Recorder Michelle Ashe, from $100,852 to $103,374.
The board unanimously approved the wage hikes. However, Commissioner Felix Schmiesing said in the future, there should be more information about the duties of the recorder and auditor/treasurer position, since some counties appoint those officials and their responsibilities might vary.
“Quite honestly, I’m not capable enough to sort through what every other county is doing and what the duties of their recorder and land manager might be,” he said. “I think we need to sort that out so we can come up with a better method.”
The board also set their own salaries for 2019, approving a wage increase from $49,273 to $51,978.
Taylor said the increase was calculated from a policy established by the board in December 2017 to re-adjust their salary to match the most current countywide median full time worker raise as established by the U.S. Census Bureau.
“We went back and looked over the past eight years,”said Taylor. “What we found was the average equated to 1.69%.”
The commissioners salary is based on how the economy is performing, and in some cases, might require a cut.
Commissioner Tim Dolan said the formula is working.
“This is policy we adopted and it’s doing exactly what it’s supposed to do,” he said. “Our salary and compensation goes along with the success of the people we serve.”
Attorney Contracts
The board approved court appointed attorney services for the following case types: guardianship/ conservatorship (Cindi Spence, Presbyterian Family Foundation Shirley Olson), CHIPS (Lisa Rutland and Cathleen Gabriel) paternity/contempt (Patrick Fugina), commitment (Thomas Richards), sexually dangerous personality (SDP)/sexually psychopathic personality (SPP) (Jones Law Office). (Rhonda Magnussen and Meredith Boudrie are backup for several of the case types).
Other Business
In other action the board:
* Appointed Stephen Demeules (Palmer Twp.) and Annie Deckert (Elk River) to the board of adjustment for three-year terms;
* Appointed the following people to the Sherburne County Plannig Advisory Commission: Blue Hill Twp. - Roger Nelson as primary member and Bill Andresen as alternate member; Clear Lake Twp. - - Terrance VanderEyke as primary member and Gary Gray as alternate member; Orrock Twp. - Bryan Adams as primary member and Corrie Silverberg as alternate member.
