Houston approves budget with employee raises, but salary issue looms

The Houston County Commission on Tuesday approved a budget for the coming fiscal year that includes a cost of living raise for employees but does not address a serious issue with salary scale.

The $108.5 million total budget keeps taxes the same and gives employees, including full-time elected officials, a 2-percent raise. But a tax increase would be needed, Commission Chairman Tommy Stalnaker said, to address the salary-scale issue.

Referred to as salary compression, it means that employees with years of experience often make the same as new employees doing the same job. That’s because the starting salary goes up each year with the cost of living adjustment.

The county stopped doing merit increases 9 years ago after the economic downtown and tax revenues haven’t recovered enough to restore those, Stalnaker said. The county has not raised the millage rate for eight years.

The tax rate will not officially be set until the tax digest is completed. The digest tells the county what each mill of taxes will generate. Stalnaker said the county will only be able to address the salary issue if tax revenues improve.

He said fixing the salary problem could cost as much as $1.5 million to start, then there will be an ongoing cost each year.

“We will look at it when we see what our financial position is going to be, as soon as our financial position improves enough that we can take it on and sustain it,” he said. “We will not implement it and not be able to sustain it.”

The city of Warner Robins is debating the same salary issue and some council members have advocated for raising taxes to fix it.

This story was originally published June 27, 2017 at 6:29 PM with the headline "Houston approves budget with employee raises, but salary issue looms."