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By VICKI URBANIK Call it the proposal that won’t die. As the Porter County Council resumed its 2009 budget hearings Monday, members found themselves once again debating, and once again defeating, the proposal to create a human resources department. As they have done at least twice before during the budget hearings, council members Jim Burge, R-at large, Mike Bucko, D-4th, and Karen Conover, R-3rd, said an HR director would bring equity to county staff pay levels and would deal with a myriad of other personnel issues affecting the county’s workforce of about 600 full- and part-timers. But as before, the idea was met with resistance, before it was killed on a 3-3 vote. Council member Dan Whitten, D-at large, called the new department another layer of bureaucracy that conflicts with the current trend toward smaller government, while Bob Poparad, D-1st, and Rita Stevenson, D-2nd, said the new HR official wouldn’t have much authority and would end up costing the county more. The seventh council member, council member William Carmichael, R-at large, was absent. The human resources department was debated on a night when the council found itself granting some special pay requests for 2009 and denying others, such as: •The Information Technology Services director was granted a $5,000 pay raise for the second year in a row, bringing the salary to $66,100. •A restructuring in the ITS department led to the elimination of one vacant post and a revised position in which the pay will increase from $43,929 to $57,000. •The two directors in the Voter Registration Office will get $5,000 raises. •The county coroner will get a fourth part-time deputy at a $7,309 and the coroner’s secretary will get a $4,000 raise, bringing the pay to $24,575; a separate request for $500 raises for current deputies was defeated. •With the exception of one court position, the council rejected a request by county judges for a 2 to 3 percent pay hike for court staff, instead granting the same $1,000 pay raise as awarded to most other full-time employees. In most cases, though, the $1,000 raise is more than what the judges first requested. The HR department was resurrected as the council debated a request from Porter County Circuit Court Judge Mary Harper to boost the pay for a restructured court position. Conover said that if the county had an HR department, the council wouldn’t find itself “shooting from the hip” when deciding what salaries to set. Similarly, Burge said the council’s decision to grant across-the-board raises promotes the tendency to “dumb down the entire institution” by rewarding the hardest working employees the same as those who don’t put forth as much effort. Poparad said he could agree with the concept, but only if the HR director would have some authority to set pay scales. But it would be impossible, he said, for this department to tell an elected official how to run his or her office. Whitten said the public doesn’t want another layer of government. “Smaller government is the answer,” he said. But Conover said the new department – proposed at a $120,000 budget --- wouldn’t add a layer of government but would work to bring consistency to employee pay levels and other personnel issues. By doing so, Burge said county employee morale and productivity would increase. He called the current system in county government dysfunctional. But Whitten said most county employees seem to love their jobs and that the real dysfunction in county government deals with faulty tax records that go back for 20 years or so. Giving a different perspective was Portage Township Assessor Maureen Wendrickx, who relayed a conversation she had with another non-local official who was amazed at her salary, $35,991, and who indicated that the job probably should pay about $20,000 more. Along those lines, Poparad said he could guarantee that with an HR department, county salaries would likely go up considerably. Other Pay Issues In other personnel matters during the final budget adoption hearing Monday, the council debated a revised budget request from Porter County Coroner Victoria Deppe, who requested raises for her staff and two additional coroner deputies. Deppe said there have been conflicts with getting a coroner to the scene in a timely manner, noting that all coroner employees hold down other jobs. Conover strongly endorsed the $4,000 hike for the coroner secretary, noting that the job is very sensitive since the secretary often has to deal with grieving family members. “This is ridiculous, $21,574,” she said, citing the current pay. A motion by Bucko to grant the $500 raises for current deputies and to add one of the two new deputies Deppe requested failed on a 3-2 vote, with Bucko, Conover and Stevenson voting yes and Poparad and Burge voting no. Four votes were needed for the motion to pass, and at the time, Whitten was not in attendance. Burge said he could support either the extra deputy or the raises but not both, prompting the council to ask Deppe to pick one or the other. Deppe favored the extra deputy, and the motion to approve the new part-time position passed unanimously. Another discussion took place over the ITS personnel changes. Burge objected to the restructured pay for the network engineer, saying that the raise of about $13,000 is a huge jump and is above and beyond other raises. But ITS Director Sharon Lippens said the position is critical for keeping up computer communications among all the county buildings and that the current post is woefully underpaid. Conover noted that in the restructuring, one position has been cut. Except for the director’s raise, the ITS’ bottom line budget remained unchanged. “This is an example of doing more with less,” Conover said.
Posted 11/18/2008
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