County on board with airport changes

Moving director position to ‘casual’ projected to bring salary savings

County board members will need to get over a $1,500 hump in order to save taxpayers a projected $50,000 a year in salary and benefits with a switch to a casual airport manager.

Airport manager Fred Ebert currently works full time and proposed going down to a casual, part-time basis in 2024 in response to continued reduced airport traffic. The plan calls for additional hours to spread among part-time help.

The airport committee has given their blessing to the change and on Friday the county’s finance and personnel committee gave its approval to the change, but leaving open when the new pay rate will go into effect.

As part of the plan, and to ease the transition into the casual time Ebert and the human resources department were looking at a wage increase that would put him at 110% of what the typical hourly pay rate for the position would be. The issue was brought up by the finance and See COUNTY on page 3 personnel committee earlier in August but no action was taken at that meeting with the sticking point being when the new pay rate will start. Ebert has asked that it begin now to allow him to ease the impact with the transition. He estimated this would cost the county about $1,500 for the remainder of the budget year with about 500 work hours remaining in 2023. The funds would come from the 2023 airport budget.

“In the end it will save about $55,000 a year,” said committee chairman Chuck Zenner. The idea was raised initially during the budget cutting special committee meetings held last spring which were also chaired by Zenner with it going to the airport committee, which is also chaired by Zenner.

“I have a hard time figuring out why you should get a raise now,” said committee member Jim Gebauer.

Ebert described it as being an incentive to this effort to save the county money in the long run. “We talk about incentive pay,” Ebert said noting that in the private sector this sort of thing is common. He said that as the county is trying to be competitive with bringing in people to work, and noting their benefits are not significantly different than any other employers, the county needs to look at doing things differently.

“What if [Ebert] changes his mind?” asked committee member Lynn Rosemeyer.

Human resources director Nicole Hager explained that as part of the process he would get a new appointment letter from the county with the terms spelled out.

She also clarified that the 110% was the recommendation from human resources, noting that it is normal to see a bump up in pay when a position goes to casual versus full time.

“I am a taxpayer too,” Ebert said, noting he was in support of saving taxpayer money.

Committee member Ray Soper said he supported the whole concept but noted the bone of contention is the change in wage at Ebert’s current position. A suggestion was made that instead of adjusting his hourly rate prior to the change to casual that the county could treat it as a one time bonus of $1,500.

With the committee scheduled to meet again on September 14, it was decided to approve the change to create the casual position as of January 1 and to discuss the wages and any compensation change now at the Sept. 14 meeting.

In other business, committee members:

  Approved the wage recommendation for the Youth Services Lead in the Human Services Department to increase one grade level. This change was the result in the position shifting responsibilities. Human Resources director Suzanne Stanfley noted that this is beneficial to the county because the programs that pay into the wages are fully funded by state sources. The pay rate will go from $27.53 per hour to $28.37 per hour effective next pay period.

  Approved the mental health counselor wage rate of $36.62 per hour. The action came after a brief closed session discussion.