Pulaski County EMS staff may have to wait a bit longer for a pay raise, after county officials failed to put the proposed salary matrix amendments into writing by Monday’s county council meeting. Last month, the council voted to take up EMS Director Brandon DeLorenzo’s proposed wage restructuring.
The county attorney’s office apparently reached out to DeLorenzo for information. But no paperwork had been presented to the council by Monday’s meeting, and the matrix update didn’t appear on the agenda.
No mention of it was made until DeLorenzo raised the issue during public comment. He noted that he has several part-time applicants interested, but not at the current rate. That means the employees he has now will continue to have to work a lot of overtime until the new wages can take effect.
Meanwhile, a proposal to let county employees keep their seniority if they go from full-time status to part-time and then want to return to full-time failed to advance, after it ended in a three-to-three tie. Currently, the county’s matrix rules consider dropping to part-time a break in employment for longevity purposes, but it isn’t mentioned in the employee handbook that staff members are more likely to see.
Council Member Kathi Thompson was among those voting in favor of the change. “If you go down to part-time, you give up PTO time and you give up benefits,” she said. “You give up a lot when you go down to part-time. That doesn’t necessarily mean that we should hamper people from deciding to come back full-time, particularly, if they’re good employees, and we want them to come back full-time.”
Council Member Brian Young’s motion to reestablish a committee to focus specifically on the salary matrix failed by a vote of four-to-two, with only Thompson joining him in favor. Young called the matrix antique, unworkable, and confusing to everyone, but Council Member Rudy DeSabatine apparently felt the job of untangling it was too complex to entrust to a dedicated committee. “I think it’s a little more complicated than just, like, ‘Hey, let’s get together and change the whole laws of the county,’” he said. It’s more complicated than that, guys. It ain’t a 15-minute job.”
One pay raise that was approved was a $1,900 increase for Sheriff Jeff Richwine. Council members had little choice, since the sheriff’s minimum salary is tied to the prosecutor’s salary, which, in turn, is set by the state.
