BENTONVILLE — A panel of Benton County justices of the peace endorsed a Road Department reorganization plan expected to save about $85,000 as their priority among mid-year staffing requests.
At the same time, the justices of the peace requested hiring a Geographic Information Systems coordinator for about $77,000, their lowest.
The Quorum Court’s Personnel Committee spent about two hours Tuesday reviewing 16 requests for personnel or staff changes from elected officials and department heads. The five justices of the peace ranked the requests in order of priority and the result of their combined rankings will be sent to the Finance Committee which will decide which, if any, to recommend.
Barb Ludwig, county human resources manager, said the total cost of the requests would be about $98,000 if all were approved. For a full budget year, the recommendations would cost about $257,000, she said.
Justice of the Peace Tom Allen, who is chairman of the Finance Committee, said he’ll continue to review the requests and may change his preferences. Allen said the committee isn’t necessarily bound by the rankings.
“I’m going to continue looking at it in Finance,” Allen said. “Some of these rankings are surprising to me, where some are low and some are high.”
Some of the discussion Tuesday involved how to weigh the county’s benefits package against the higher wages frequently offered by cities and private business. Several department heads mentioned often losing trainer personnel to higher paying jobs. Ludwig said the county needs to have information on the prevailing market cost of similar jobs to craft its compensation package, but can’t match other employers dollar for dollar.
“We can’t compete with the cities,” she said. “We can’t compete with the private sector. We just can’t. We’re still not matching the market average and we never will.”
Justice of the Peace Shirley Sandlin said it’s important for the county to remain close to market wages.
“We’re just trying to get within shouting distance,” Sandlin said.