Trending
PARKERSBURG -- The county has been able to offer raises to its existing employees as the Wood County Commission approves its 2023-24 budget.
During Monday's regular commission meeting, the commission unanimously approved a $27,610,443 budget, compared to around $23 million when Commission President Blair Couch first took office in 2007.
"Our revenues have gone up," he said.
Couch said they did a 4% pay increase for each employee and $60 a month was added to the employee health care plan, regardless of coverage class. The county also added $1,000 per employee to the health reimbursement account and $2,000 per family.
If an employee made $31,500 a year, that works out to around $120 a month increase.
A number of the elected officials asked for additional employees that the county commission was not able to approve outright.
"Money (for raises) will go into (each department's) budget and the electeds can choose to hire someone if there is enough," Couch said.
Officials said all of what the department heads asked for would have cost around $2.8 million and officials had to balance those wants with what was available to work with.
Couch also suggested doing internal grants for a year to help with some of the needs of the departments if things get busy. He also suggested some departments can look at part-time employees.
The anticipated employee health insurance costs increased 34.26% which that money is supposed to be able to help cover. Couch said they are working on eventually getting the county to an 80/20 split on health coverage where the county's insurance plan would cover 80% and the employees would cover 20%.
"I would have tried to do it this year, but we can't afford the pay increase that would offset that," he said. "We have to get to a point where we are more like private companies. An 80/20 percent split is pretty much the normal, but they don't have the richness of our benefits package."
There is a 60-day wait on insurance coverage starting due to issues in the past where people were hired because of a medical condition, got treatment and left the position they were hired for.
Court security and home confinement saw increases to their budgets. The prosecutor's office saw increases in funding for a secretary and assistant prosecutors.
Couch said the WVU Extension employees were among the lowest paid employees in the county and the commission got them up to around $35,000.
"What we tried to do was bring the lowest paid up," Couch said.
Commissioner Jimmy Colombo said the commission is "flexible" in meeting the needs of employees and being responsible with the taxpayer's money.
"The elected officials and the department heads) do a good job of getting that budget to work for them," he said. "We will always be open, as the year goes along ,.. we have always been flexible in meeting the needs, we always have been."
The budget will be sent to the Wood County Clerk for review and can be modified by the commission on Thursday, if any mistakes are discovered. before it is sent to the state.
In other business, the commission appointed former North Hills Mayor Bill Summers and former Wood County Commissioner Wayne Dunn to the Wood County Solid Waste Authority.
Brett Dunlap can be reached at bdunlap@newsandsentinel.com