ELKINS — The City of Elkins Personnel Committee unanimously approved the creation of a resolution to make cost-of-living adjustments for the city’s administrative officers this week.

Committee members discussed and planned to implement a resolution that would create a cost-of-living adjustment of 6% every two years, or just under 3% annually, for Elkins’ five administrative officers, including the city clerk, treasurer, fire chief, police chief and operations manager.

The adjustments would ensure that the five Administrative Officers’ pay would be within the salary threshold laid out in a recent decision by the U.S. Department of Labor. The decision increases the thresholds for employees with annual salaries that are exempt from receiving overtime. The decision will go into effect Jan. 1.

According to an agenda report for the Monday meeting, the rule change put three of the five administrative officers, City Hall’s HR director and the communications specialist below the newly laid-out threshold.

“What’s being proposed here would standardize the pattern of when adjustments would happen,” Elkins City Clerk Sutton Stokes told the Personnel Committee during this week’s meeting. “The amount being talked about, which is 6% every two years, would work out to be less than that average compensation adjustment amount has been in the past across all five officers.”

Stokes said the city’s five administrative officers are appointed by and negotiate salaries directly with City Council. Only two of the officers, the clerk and the treasurer, are appointed to two-year terms and have negotiated salary adjustments biannually as a result. The other three, the fire chief, police chief and operations manager, have no natural renegotiation point and have seen salary increases lag as a result. 

The agenda item report states that, over recent years, the average annual salary increase for the five administrative officers has been just under 4%. According to a memo sent to the Personnel Committee from HR Director Melissa Washington, a previous operations manager waited six years for his second raise and four years after that for his third; a previous fire chief waited three years for his first raise and five years after that for his second; and a past police chief waited four years for his first increase after his initial appointment.

The new framework would see all five officers equally receive a cost-of-living adjustment of 6% every two years, or just under 3% annually. The memo states, in this new plan, if any administrative officer felt that their salary warranted restructuring based on “significantly expanded duties or for exceptional performance,” they would be free to make that case to the Personnel Committee separately as they see fit. “Otherwise, they would simply see their salaries increased by 6% every two years,” the memo reads.

“It does make sense,” Personnel Committee member and First Ward council member Robert Chenoweth said during the meeting. “Being in the position to negotiate salaries occasionally with some of the admin officers, it’s difficult to, sometimes, rationalize what’s in the best interest of the city versus what’s fair. I might be in this position today, next year someone else might be with different criteria. I think it makes sense to have a set of criteria to make that automatic.”

When Chenoweth questioned how the new framework would cause the officers’ salaries to outpace the salaries of the employees that work under them, Treasurer Tracy Judy, who was in attendance with the other administrative officers and Mayor Jerry Marco, explained that it all depends on revenue.

“The same way is true not just for the admin officers, but the hourly employees. It’s all based on how revenues comes in for each fund, basically,” Judy said. “I can’t predict the future, although I can say the last five years everything’s been trending the right way… I think each of the admin officers oversees more than one employee opposed to the employee just being himself. So, I think that, to me, is a reason, maybe one reason, for it to be more. Because basically, you’re counting on us as admin officers to run our departments to be effective for the city.”

Stokes, Judy and Operations Manager Michael Kesecker all expressed to the Personnel Committee that this plan accounts for adapting based on revenue, and allows for reviewing to tweak the framework if there are changes to revenue or department costs.

“It’s always going to be a work in progress, I think is the best way to put it,” Kesecker said. “But at least you have something in structure that you can follow.”

Elkins City Police Chief Travis Bennett also explained to the committee that he didn’t think there would be a major disparity between officers’ pay and employee pay any time soon with the new framework, especially in his and Fire Chief Steve Himes’ departments.

“Actually, what we’ve been doing has caused the exact opposite,” Bennett said. “I’m not in the top three in my department in pay. My guys work, their set schedule is four hours of mandatory overtime every two weeks. Their hourly rate with that four hours of overtime, that will put them ahead of what my salary is, at least three employees. I’m maybe in the top five in my department in salary. So it would take a long time for that to cause a huge disparity.”

Himes confirmed this for his department too, telling the committee that an employee at the fire department just retired who made more in pay than he did, and that a new captain he plans to promote in January will also make more than he currently does, due to overtime. He also mentioned that the new framework could make the administrative positions more attractive to those who apply in the future.

“Most of the people on that admin team have been tenured with the city for some period of time. Tracy, as an example, is not going to be here forever. Do we want to make that job attractive to her number two?” Himes said. “Do we want to make Travis’ job, or my job or Mike’s job… Maybe your next operations manager is slinging garbage right now, but that gives him a goal to reach.”

Currently, the operations manager position pays $70,000 per year; if the new plan is approved, a 6% increase Jan. 1 would move that salary to $74,200.

The treasurer position currently pays $59,000 per year; with a 6% increase, that would increase to $62,540 next year.

Both the police chief and city clerk positions each have a salary of $58,000 per year; if the plan is approved, a 6% increase would increase those salaries to $61,480.

The fire chief position currently pays $55,000 per year; with the 6% increase, and a $4,000 increase so that the position will “become exempt,” that salary would raise to $61,480 next year.

The Personnel Committee unanimously voted to move forward with a resolution to adopt the new framework. The Elkins City Council will vote on implementing the resolution during tonight’s special council meeting. The council will meet at 7 p.m. at the Phil Gainer Community Center.