Salary board turns down raise requests

The salary board is meeting Wednesday.
By LAURE CIOFFI
VINDICATOR PENNSYLVANIA BUREAU
NEW CASTLE, Pa. -- After taking a beating over proposals for the coming meeting, the Lawrence County salary board is being a bit more frugal.
The group turned down several requests during its agenda-setting meetingMonday, including increases for two newly created positions and increases for the deputy director of public safety and the mental health/mental retardation department.
The board has been receiving complaints from regular visitors since it handed out about $114,000 in salary increases in January, including some for new positions, beyond the 4.1 percent increases granted to all nonunion and management employees.
Requests
The salary board is meeting at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday to consider the latest round of pay increase requests. They include:
Restructuring the county planning department by eliminating the position of county planning director, assistant director and planner II. The assistant director is to be reclassified as a GIS/transportation supervisor, and the planner II is to become the planning supervisor. Both will be paid $38,161 per year.
Eliminating a clerk typist II position in Voter Registration at a base salary of $20,017 and replacing it with an office manager position at $25,000.
Adjusting the salaries of two public defenders -- the first by $2,742 for an annual salary of $44,500 and the second by $1,585 for an annual salary of $40,252. The salary board rejected a request to give a 40-cent-per-hour increase to a new part-time secretarial position and an 82-cent-per-hour increase to a new paralegal position.
No action
Several other salary requests were put on the agenda at a caucus meeting earlier this month. The board decided to take no action on a request that the deputy director of public safety be reclassified as deputy director/operations training officer with a $2,688 increase.
The board also didn't take action on a request that the election return board be paid the same wages as part-time union. Return board workers are paid $7 per hour, but part-time union workers are paid $9.31 per hour. Controller Mary Ann Reiter said the union contract stipulates that all nonunion part-time workers are also paid $9.31 per hour and no action was needed by the salary board.
A request to change the status of two mental health/mental retardation workers from union to nonunion status and give each a $5,100 pay increase was also pulled from the agenda because one of the changes was contested by the county labor unions.
cioffi@vindy.com