County Panel OKs Personnel Requests

Thursday, October 24, 2013

BENTONVILLE — Benton County’s Personnel Committee added nearly $500,000 in new positions, wage increases and reorganizations to the 2014 budget mix Tuesday.

The committee forwarded a list of items to the Finance Committee to approve as part of the budget. Barb Ludwig, human resources manager, said the committee elected not to forward two requests — one to give employees extra pay when they’re “on call” and a second allowing salaried employees to be paid overtime when they were called to work during certain emergency situations.

“They didn’t pass on the on-call pay proposal, which would have cost about $47,000 from the general fund,” Ludwig said. “They also didn’t pass the overtime for exempt employees. That would only have been in effect if the county judge declared an emergency, but they just felt that was part of a salaried person’s job.”

The remaining items could cost $500,000 if approved by the Finance Committee, Ludwig said. Of that cost, she said, about $385,000 would come from the general fund and the rest from others, including the County Clerk’s automation fund and the Sheriff’s Office communication fund.

Justices of the peace also approved reorganization plans for the Road Department, Planning and Environmental Department and Veterans’ Services office.

The Veterans’ Services office plan calls for adding a female veterans’ services officer, according to Stele James, who oversees the office. James said there are an increasing number of women veterans and some feel less comfortable talking about their health or other service-related issues with a male service officer.

He said both the state and federal governments have recognized these issues and begun hiring women for these jobs. James said the female officer will not be limited to working with women and women can chose to work with male officers if they wish.

The Road Department reorganization was presented by Terry Nalley, public services administrator. Nalley told justices of the peace he wanted to add positions in the lower levels and delete some administrative posts. The plan would add two foreman positions, two positions to the bridge crew, two positions to the dirt crew and one grader operator.

“In the previous administration the flow chart seemed to be way too top heavy,” Nalley said. “My experience has been to put the people in the field to get done what we need to be done.”

The Planning and Environmental Department would have its responsibilities divided among three divisions if justices of the peace approve the plan. John Sudduth, general services administrator, wants to split the planning, environmental services and building inspection functions in to separate divisions. County Judge Bob Clinard said the three had become intermingled in previous administrations.

“They are three distinct, individual jobs with distinct areas of expertise. To lump them all together was not a good decision,” Clinard said.

Shirley Sandlin, justice of the peace for District 8, said the Personnel Committee sent the items on to the budget process without any recommendations that they be approved. Sandlin said decisions on whether to include the requests will boil down to a question of money.

Tom Allen, justice of the peace for District 4 and chairman of the Finance Committee, said the added cost of new personnel, reorganizations and wage adjustment requests will have to compete with employee raises and capital equipment purchases.

“At last look we were at about $2.1 million in revenue over expenses,” Allen said. “So this puts us at about $1.75 million if it’s all approved. As we’ve said, we don’t like being painted into a corner over raises being a certain amount, but 7 percent raises is going to be about $2.1 million. So if we do this, we can’t meet that goal. If we do both then we can’t get into the capital requests.”