ELKINS — The Randolph County Commission unanimously approved ratifying a wage increase for general county employees and sheriff’s deputies during its most recent meeting.

“I had budgeted $900,000 in anticipated rollover and it came in at $970,000,” Commission President Davis Kesling said during the Aug. 7 meeting. “So that was $75,000 extra that wasn’t budgeted for the new fiscal year. I had to put it somewhere, so I decided to give that back to the employees, since we didn’t give them a raise in the budget because of the PEIA Insurance increase.”

The 5% raise covers all of the county’s employees except for Sheriff’s Office deputies, who Commission President David Kesling said have had their wages adjusted to compare to other deputies outside of Randolph County. 

“I had (Randolph County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy) Brad Sharp do a wage survey of surrounding counties and see where we stood compared to them,” Kesling said. “And then we adjusted the pay scale on them to match or beat surrounding counties to help take care of the deputies we have, because they deserve it.”

Kesling said he contacted all of the elected officials in Randolph County before the Commission made the decision to give the raises. 

“I wanted to get the elected officials’ input on the raises and make sure they were OK with it,” Kesling said. “Everyone was fine with us doing it and we were happy to do it. The county employees work really hard and they are the reason why we had a rollover in the first place.”

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Commissioners also unanimously approved a $5,000 funding request from the Elkins Parks and Recreation during the Aug. 7 meeting.

The funding will help with the Children’s Day Camp that the EPRC hosts at Elkins City Park each summer.

“During the summer months the EPRC provides meals to kids attending their camp, so we wanted to do whatever we could do to help them with that,” Kesling said. “We were told that the meal some of the kids receive at camp is the only one they may get to eat that day.

“The camp not only helps the children in Elkins, but there are kids from throughout the county that go to it.”

The next Randolph County Commission meeting is scheduled for Aug. 21 at the Commission Annex beginning at 1:30 p.m.