The Lewis County Citizens’ Salary Commission held what its chair Robert Berg believed would be its final meeting on Thursday.
During the virtual meeting at 5:30 p.m., salary commission members discussed their March 23 decision to grant the Lewis County Commissioners a 10.95% salary increase, raising the salaries for the three commissioners from $90,886 to $100,838.
The commission voted 7-0 to approve the salary increase with no abstentions. The decision was outlined in a letter sent to Lewis County Auditor Larry Grove dated March 30.
In the letter, Berg informed Grove the commissioners’ salary increases were based on per capita changes in income from 2019 through 2020. He noted data for 2021 and 2022 was not available from the Washington State Employment Security Department and could therefore not be considered.
“We all decided in the beginning it would be a per capita income metric based on employment and payroll,” commission member Eric Carlson said.
During the meeting, Berg thanked everyone for the time they spent contributing to the salary commission’s efforts. He added there had been about 20 meetings of the salary commission and said the commission experienced a “dust up” when it came to recommending salaries in the past.
“But everybody stayed the course and contributed and I really appreciate that,” Berg said. “I know the citizens of the county may not say that but citizens’ commissions are what makes things work, so thank you very much for everything everyone did.”
The salary commission previously voted not to approve a salary increase for the Lewis County Commissioners at a meeting on June 7, 2022. During that meeting, salary commission members Kelly Bell, Matt Brock, Eric Carlson and Martha Hunt all voted in favor of denying an increase while Berg, Rick Kuykendall and Ted McCarson voted against the decision to deny an increase.
According to the minutes of the June 2022 meeting, Kuykendall said he believed the decision was “incredibly punitive and petulant,” though he understood that nobody on the salary commission liked how the Lewis County Commissioners handled previous discussions on salaries for elected officials.
During that meeting, Berg expressed a feeling that the Lewis County Commissioners had thrown the salary commission “under the bus” when the county commissioners voted to give other county elected officials a raise of 10% in addition to an 8% raise the salary commission had given those officials.
According to Berg, the decision by the county commissioners happened after the commissioners asked the salary commission to determine the salary increases.
Berg told the commission members on Thursday he didn’t believe there would be another salary commission meeting based on the political environment.
“If I understand the political winds at all, they’re going to go a different direction in the future, and if I’m correct, this commission ends. But I thank all of you for taking the time,” Berg said.
As the meeting closed, Carlson told the other salary commission members he was proud of their work to develop what he viewed as a unique method of determining salary increases.
“Everyone else has always looked at consumer price index and inflation in order to set salaries or increases of elected officials and I’m quite proud of what we did as a commission together and kind of redefining how we look at that and tying it to what the average taxpayer, worker, employed person saw as an increase in their salary per capita,” Carlson said. “I know we spent quite a bit of time looking at that at the very beginning and I’m really glad we all did that. And I would hope that any future increases would follow that metric. I think we sometimes disagreed … but ultimately we are all on the same page with that metric. I think that’s something our group should be particularly proud of. And it’s unique as far as I know in the state.”
“Here here, could not agree more,” Berg added after Carlson finished speaking.
The salary commission adjourned at 5:40 p.m.
