The Pulaski County Council has reversed course on a salary change for a staff member in the Prosecutor’s Office. Last month, the council voted to tie the victim’s assistance coordinator’s pay rate to the level specified by the grant that funds the position, with Ken Boswell and Scott Hinkle opposing. But when it came time to update the salary matrix to reflect the change last week, council members Rudy DeSabatine and Jay Sullivan joined Boswell and Hinkle in opposition, denying the measure by a vote of four-to-three.
Hinkle felt the proposal completely went against the county’s matrix. “It’s not fair to every other employee in the county, just because the grant money’s there,” he said. “No offense to the employee. We’ve set the matrix up to be fair to everybody.”
Meanwhile, Council Member Mike Tiede continued his opposition to a pay raise for the chief deputy coroner. Tiede cast the lone opposing vote against a $6,500 budget transfer to cover the increase. Back in February, council members approved a measure that more than quadrupled the chief deputy coroner’s pay rate to almost $8,100 a year, but only after they had removed most of the funding from this year’s budget.
Also during last week’s meeting, council members tabled a request from the Recycling and Transfer Station to move a part-time CDL driver to full-time status and re-tabled the EMS Department’s request to bring back the assistant director position, pending the completion of the county’s fiscal plan.
