Dubois County Council debates pay changes

A federal mandate in how salaried employees are compensated has caused a big discussion at the county level.

The county was notified by the U.S. Department of Labor of the coming changes to the standards in salary amounts for employees exempt from overtime pay. The changes are part of new requirements for minimum salaries for many different job classifications that go into effect December 1. Under the new standards, administrative director positions will have to be paid $47,000 annually to remain exempt.

In the county’s case, six positions are classified as exempt — the emergency management director, the sheriff’s chief deputy, solid waste director, soil and water director, 911 emergency communications director and the health department director.

Since the emergency management, solid waste and soil and water positions don’t meet that minimum salary requirement, the council was considering changing them to nonexempt rather than meeting the minimum salary requirement.

Further ensconcing the issue was the recent budget freeze that included not allow pay raises for county employees for 2017. The council had viewed the increased pay, regardless of the mandate, to be a pay raise for Humbert.

Monday evening, Tammy Humbert Executive Director with the Dubois County Emergency Management presented the council letters of support to keep her at exempt status as opposed to moving her to nonexempt status.

As an emergency management director, Humbert’s pay of about $41,000 annually is split between the county and the state through federal funding. The increase under the mandate would also be split with the state.

“You’re telling me one thing but you’ve already done another. We’ve got three exempt employees that are still exempt employees.” Humbert said. “You moved them right in, moved them right into that without questions asked. Came to my position, it’s exempt, but because of the dollar amount, you’re calling it a raise…I just have to say I disagree with that.”

Humbert pointed out that if she was moved to nonexempt, the overtime pay would not be split with the state. According to Humbert, she has accumulated over 300 hours of overtime this year. Knowing this, she felt eventually the county would move her back to the exempt status.

“The more I got to thinking about it, the more I was concerned about that. The position has been exempt for years. We have the opportunity to change to non-exempt and up front, save several thousand dollars.” Council member Jerry Hunefeld said.

But as he thought about the issue, he changed his mind. Hunefeld said although not changing her status means she would see an increase in pay, the county would eventually lose money by doing so.

County Council President Greg Kendall said, “I don’t want to play games with anybody’s salary.”

Kendal advocated keeping her at exempt saying the examination of the issue has been an eye opener as to how low her pay is for what she does for the county.

Councilwoman Charmian Klem pointed out that if the council decides to keep Humbert at the exempt classification, the others in the county who fall under the same guidelines should be kept as exempt also.

No one objected.

The Council is currently working on an employee compensation study in conjunction with IU Kelley School of Business.

Councilwoman Klem said that the study is expected to be completed by December. The results could force the council to have to make adjustments in pay next year for some employees who might be singled out as being paid too low for their job classification.

“We have to be fair to everybody,” said Councilwoman Martha Wehr.

Councilmember Craig Greulich wanted to wait until October to make a decision on whether or not to move Humbert from ‘exempt’ to ‘non-exempt’ status.

He made a motion to table the issue until the next meeting. It died without a second.

Kendall motioned to keep Tammy’s position at exempt. It was seconded by Klem and passed by the council.

The council also decided to move non-emergency positions — soil and water and solid waste — currently exempt to nonexempt and keep their salaries the same.

The council also took the following actions:

-Approved $20,000 to pay jailers and deputies overtime as they deal with overcrowding at the jail. The current inmate population is about 82 according to Sheriff Donnie Lampert which is over the jail’s capacity. Lampert asked the council to consider expanding the jail to accommodate the larger population but was denied. Kendall at the time said they wouldn’t approve anything until the state mandated it.

-Approved an $80,000 appropriation for new surveillance gear for the jail.

-Councilwoman Becky Beckman reported to the council that she continues to examine the tax abatement issue saying that the county has been too generous to businesses in issuing tax abatements because there is too much “fluff” in the requirements.