Potter Salary Board approves raises

The Potter County Salary Board partially approved a pair of salary increases that were promised by the previous board of commissioners and created two new positions during its meeting Thursday afternoon.

Emergency Management Deployment Coordinator John Hetrick requested raises for James Steiner, EMA director, and Kevin Gledhill, GIS coordinator.

The previous board approved the increase based upon Steiner's completion of mandatory state training. Steiner had one year to complete the training, which he completed in nine months, Commissioner Doug Morley said. Gledhill also completed additional schooling to handle what Commissioner Susan Kefover called a "very specialized position."

There was some discussion as to the nature of the raises, which were accounted for in the EMA budget for 2008.

"This is a situation that we inherited," said Commissioner Paul Heimel.

Morley explained the board was going to approve of the increases in salary, but they were breaking them down into merit increases and management increases.

Steiner's requested increase was $3,750, bringing his salary to $33,750. Morley said that the board would grant a merit increase that combined with the management increases would bring Steiner's salary to $33,750.

The same would be done for Gledhill's salary, bringing it up from $28,375 to $31,000.

The rate of the management raises "has not been determined at this time," Morley said.

The board will be setting standards to get information up front before considering or approving merit raises in the future to prevent similar situations, Morley explained.

A new law-clerk position was approved, but not before the board abolished the position that was held previously by Nate Wagner. The previous position had to be abolished because it was a union position, Morley explained.

The new position is nonunion with the same contract as the previous position. The change was to facilitate a lawyer filling the vacancy, as the new employee's salary and duties would not be controlled by a union.

The other position, a parttime, on-call union position with no benefits was created for Treasurer Krista Miller's office. The new employee would be called in to work when either Miller or Shannon Sauley, the first deputy treasurer, were absent from the office, Morley said.

The position would not exceed 1,000 hours per year and was budgeted for $10,000, Miller explained.

Morley said that a volunteer had previously assisted in the treasurer's office, but was no longer available to help out.