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LISBON - The Columbiana County Board of Elections has approved a pay increase for administrative staff. The raise brings their pay closer to statewide averages, but still below what other comparably sized counties pay their workers.
The board met Tuesday and President David Johnson said he and Deputy Director Brice Miner had recently conducted a very extensive review of wages and salaries comparing Columbiana County with other like-sized counties in Ohio.
"We've done a review of county wages for clerical and administrative positions and we've come up with what we think are structural changes that needed to be made to bring our staff up to the level of not only what county employees are being paid but more importantly where other like-sized positions in other like-sized counties, to what their pay is," Johnson said. The details of the raise broken down by Johnson include:
Director and deputy director: wage increased by 5 percent
Most junior-level employee: started at $13 an hour, raising it to $15 an hour, below standard average of $16.04.
Mid-level clerks at 10-15 years of experience: was at $16.28 an hour, median average is $18.65 an hour, raised to $18.26
Upper-level clerk: raising $2.50 an hour to $18.78
Most senior employee: raised $2.50 an hour to $20.82 an hour, median is $21.16 an hour
Johnson said the change puts the county closer to paying on par with what other counties pay administrative positions, although still lagging behind. He said the additional wages for the staff will amount to $18,720 a year.
"With the reduction in precincts that we just adopted here in this county going from 87 precincts down to 73, we will have a $20,000 savings per year," Johnson said. "So we are saving more money than what this is costing us and yet we're asking our staff to do more, frankly, in terms of administering these precincts than what they were doing before."
Board Director Kim Fusco presented a preliminary report about increasing poll workers' pay in the county. She said rates in Columbiana County are lower than other places.
"The presiding judges make $120. It's lowball. A lot of counties do $135, $130," Fusco said. "Poll workers make around $115. Ours are at $101.50. If you do bump it up a bit, it's going to cost you $2,656.50 each election cycle."
Johnson said the pay increase could recruit more help. "We are having trouble getting poll workers," he noted
Fusco said in order to implement a poll worker pay increase in 2023, the board would have to act on it by October.
In other business, Miner said that according to a 2019 security directive, the county board must pass a Homeland Security Assessment required by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency out of Washington D.C. He said the organization recently performed remote testing and then did on-site testing in the office two weeks ago.
"Initial reports are very positive," Miner said. "We feel very confident our network is secure here in the office." He will update the board when the final results come in, he said.
The board also certified four candidate petitions for the offices of judge of the Court of Common Pleas, county commissioner and county auditor. Fusco said the board received seven petitions but only were able to vote on the four Tuesday due to House Bill 93 which gives a state and federal March 9 filing deadline. Miner said the board will meet again prior to March 9 to approve the remaining state and federal filings. The four approved Tuesday were:
Scott Washam for common pleas judge
Nancy Milliken for auditor
Ray Wagner for county commissioner for Jan. 1 term
Mike Halleck for county commissioner
Board members also certified 74 central committee filings as submitted.
Regarding the Dec. 27 filing of a dismissal from Seventh Appellate District regarding Salem Citizens for Action versus Columbiana County Board of Elections involving RITA in Salem, the board formally recognized the dismissal as fact.
The board also approved bills for November, December and January at a respective $96,218.67, $55,924.57 and $54,046.45.