County Council works to amend payroll budget, elects new officers
- Nathaniel Smith | Editor-in-Chief
- 2 hours ago
- 12 min read
On Monday, February 2, The Washington County Commissioners and Council held a special joint meeting in regard to payroll. A normal year has 26 pay periods, however, this year has 27. This happens roughly every 11 years, but the budget was not set to accommodate the 27 pay periods this year. This resulted in one question: how was the government going to pay the affected employees this year?
The gallery was packed with concerned government employees anxious to hear the fate of their paychecks, but the meeting began with the reorganization of the county council. Andrew Davisson and Brad Gilbert were nominated to take over as president. Davisson had a statement prepared to read.
“I have something I want to say before we vote,” said Davisson. “I want to thank the council for the nomination. I believe this role is about responsibility, not title. We won't always agree, but we must always put this county first. If chosen as president, I will focus on unity, common sense decisions and respect for every voice at this table. I am ready to serve and I would appreciate your support. Thank you.”
The council voted in Brad Gilbert as the 2026 president. Following this, Gerald Fleming was nominated and elected as vice president.
The council then invited Lucy Brenton to come forward and speak.
“For those who don't know me, my name is Lucy Brenton,” said Brenton. “I was appointed to the Washington County Plan Commission in August. That's the part of our county that handles the zoning. So normally I would talk about solar and alternative housing. That's what I came to talk about this morning. I'll reserve those comments for February 10th at 6:30 pm in this room, if you'd like to come and talk about that. However, when I saw this package here this morning, it actually caused great alarm in my mind because I recognized that what is contained in this document is a tale of how taxpayers have been shorted. Blank checks have been written on the backs of taxpayers, all of us. And the bill for developer overages is being handed to us as taxpayers. So one of the questions I'm going to ask you here today on the council is knowing that a loan was probably taken out in order to do this building, and that's what we're going to be talking about, everybody. If you look at this first page, we're talking about the B.O.T. building that's down at 135 and the bypass. And I'm wondering if that loan is going to exist and still be in effect on the backs of my grandchildren as taxpayers… My understanding of a B.O.T. agreement is that it has to be built to specifications, that it must come in on the budget promised by the developer, and then we make the decision at the end to pay for the whole thing.”
Brenton then described what she feels are issues with the B.O.T. agreement regarding the highway garage project. She again came forward to speak on this topic the following day at the regularly scheduled commissioners meeting. The remainder of her comments from both meetings will be covered in the upcoming February 3 commissioners meeting article.
Sheriff Brent Miller was the first to start the conversation regarding payroll. President Brad Gilbert invited him forward to speak. He began by stating that many of his employees are worried about the “dreaded 27th pay of 2026.” He brought forth two different solutions. The first being the “redivisor” method, and the second being the “status quo” method. The “redivisor” method takes the standard 26 pay period and stretches it across 27 pay periods. This tends to result in less money in each paycheck, but it amounts to the normal pay an employee would receive annually. The “status quo” method simply adds a 27th pay period, resulting in more money for the employee.
“I've been working for the Washington County Sheriff's Department for 36+ years now,” said Sheriff Miller. “Mathematically, this is at least the third time this payroll anomaly has occurred during my time of employment with Washington County, and I don't recall the county council ever choosing to go with the redivisor method. And I'm confident that this can be verified or denied by the auditor's office regarding how it was handled before in the past.
“I have heard unofficially that the status quo method could cost the county approximately $300,000 in extra pay,” he continued. “Again, I'm confident that the auditor's office has calculated that and can tell you what that dollar amount is to fix this. It has been said that we can't put this on the backs of the taxpayers, and I agree. It has also been said that we have to be fair to all county employees as well. I also agree with that. I'd like to give you just one example of how this affects county employees, and what I'm going to do is I'm going to use a deputy's yearly salary – who is considered an hourly employee. A deputy at our sheriff's department right now currently makes $61,864 divided by 26 pay periods, which would normally be what a usual year would have. That hourly rate would be $29.74. And that's also what was approved in the most recent salary ordinance that was passed out to everybody. However, if we divide that yearly salary by 27 pay periods, that drops that hourly rate to $28.64 an hour, which is $1.10 less on the hour, which also affects the deputy's overtime rate. Making less on the hour. Our deputies are also allowed to work overtime when they are off duty on a highway safety grant to help make our roads safer for our citizens. Because the deputy's hourly rate is less as a result of the redivisor method, the deputy will also make less money while working overtime for the Highway Safety grant. How will this shortage be made up for the deputies or any employee that works overtime in 2026, or will the employees receive any additional compensation at all? My hope said that you, as the County Council members, will choose to go with the status quo method, and here is my solution to pay the extra pay: Department heads get an email from Michelle at the first of each month from the auditor's office. I can speak for the department heads, I believe, when I say thank you, Michelle, for sending out the monthly reports to help the department heads understand where they are with their current yearly budget. On the 1st of January, I received my monthly report which includes three columns of numbers. There is a column that shows how much was approved for each line item in the budget for 2025, a line that indicates how much has been spent from each line item in the budget, and then there's also a third column that tells you how much money is left in that line item.
“According to the January report, which reflects the end of the year numbers for 2025, the Washington County Sheriff's Department returned $194,936.88 to the county general fund for unused salaries and wages,” he added. “I spoke with the ambulance department, and I also spoke with Judge Larry Medlock about how much money had been returned from their departments to the general fund from unused wages and salaries. The number from the three departments totals more than $330,000 that was returned to the general fund for unused wages and salaries alone. That doesn't include the other money that was returned for other line items within the budgets. I'm confident that the auditor's office can verify my numbers, and I'm also confident that the auditor's office can tell you the total amount of money that was returned to the county general fund from all of the departments from the 2025 budget. In closing, I'm asking each of the Washington County Council members to consider the status quo method. I'm asking you to be fair to the men and women who choose to work for Washington County. I'm asking you to show your county employees that you appreciate them and the work they do for Washington County. When you return home today to your families, I want you to say it was a tough decision to make, but we did what was right and we took care of our county employees. Thank you.”
After approving the meeting minutes from January, the council then invited Katelyn Shafer forward to further discuss payroll. Shafer is a financial consultant from Reedy Financial Group P.C.
“Nice to meet all of you,” began Shafer. “I am Katelyn Shafer, and I am with Reedy Financial Group. We were asked to do a little study about what your salary ordinance looked like at the start of this year and those changes to incorporate that 27th pay. We are the editors of the memo that I believe all of your employees did get. I won't go through the whole memo because it sounds like everyone has had plenty of time to go through it, but I do want to touch on a few different pieces. So, like the memo says, there are two structures, and those two structures have an impact on the county wide funds. I am not here to tell you to go one way or the other. I am here to just give you the facts and you make that decision. I have no impact on that.
“I will say with the redivisor, which is dividing your total annual pay by 27 instead of the usual 26 pays, you are not losing any pay. It is the same amount annually,” she said. “Yes, your biweekly and your hourly rates do go down, and to the point that the one gentleman made, yes, that does affect overtime. That is one bad side effect of using the redivisor option. That is probably the biggest downfall of that option. That's not to say that you cannot do the redivisor and come up with a different type of fee to bridge that gap. I don't know what that looks like for you guys. I don't know what your gap looks like. I did not look at your total funds. I don't know what you have available. I don't know what kind of unappropriated funds you do have from the prior year or on an ongoing basis, of course. But I will say with the status quo method, yes, everyone is now getting whatever you decided to give them. I think you guys gave them a 4% increase this year. So, they're getting that 4% plus an extra pay. So, moving forward next year, if you go with the status quo, you gave them 4%, and they're getting an extra pay. What are you going to build off of next year? Are you going to absorb that much in salaries for next year? Or will the employees not anticipate that big of a bump because they're getting such a substantial bump in 2026. Because an extra pay is a lot. So, those are the two options. There are downfalls to both, but of course there are areas that you can bridge that gap. From my standpoint, that would take me looking into your finances a lot more. I don't know your specific situation.
“When I looked at the salary ordinance, there was nothing wrong with how it was recalculated,” said Shafer. “I will say I think a lot of confusion is are you an actual hourly employee or are you what we call the salary non-exempt employees, which means you're basically a salary, but you're still applicable to comp time, over time, all of that. Most county employees are salary non-exempt. They're not hourly employees, and I think that miscommunication or misunderstanding may have caused a lot of this back and forth between the county and employees. I do think some edits to the salary ordinance, if they have not already been made, should be made to make sure everyone knows which category they fall in and how that is calculated, and to add language that the next time this happens, this is the way that the county handles it. So, there are a couple of adjustments I would suggest with your salary ordinance overall, but nothing was calculated incorrectly using the redivisor method.”
It was then made known by Andrew Davisson that the council did not vote to approve hiring Reedy Financial Group as a consultant. Mark “Bubba” Abbott stated that he made the decision on his own as “acting president.” Davisson then stated that the president is not allowed to make those decisions on his or her own.
“I feel like if we’re spending taxpayer dollars on consulting, it should require a vote,” said Davisson.
“I would like to say that I spoke with Bubba on this, and I was in agreement with him on finding someone because I want it done right,” said Auditor Kyra Stephenson. “I by no means want anyone to think that we are trying to not do payroll right, or that we're trying to screw them out of something, which is what has been accused. I would rather hire a company, someone that knows how to look it over and make sure what we do is correct. So yes, him and I did talk about it and I'm in agreement with him. I wanted a professional to come in here and look it over and make sure that we paid these people correct.”
Brad Gilbert then opened the meeting up to public comments once again. Clerk of Courts Stephanie Rockey was among one of the members of the gallery that stood up to speak.
“When I got the memo that was sent out, I went through it a couple times to absorb it. If you go back to our current handbook, I believe that's the latest version that department heads have. We don't have first deputies and chief deputies in departments anymore, except for a few. So, those categories, since I've been with the county, haven't been used... We did away with first deputies and chief deputies. It's up to the department head to swear in a chief deputy. I know for sure the clerk's office has not had a chief deputy since 2018. So to me, we're muddying the waters as we keep going down the road. I'm old school. I used to punch in with a paper time card. So, my way of doing payroll years ago before I started with the county was, if you clock in and out, you're hourly. You accrue benefits based on the actual hours worked. If you are salary like myself, the salary ordinance might say one thing, but by the time you put on an election, you might make a quarter an hour. So, you know that going into a salaried position.
“We have to communicate,” she continued. “You all said you were going to work together. We all have to work together. We're each a puzzle piece of the county. We should not be worried if we're going to get paid or not. So, my last communication with the auditor's office was at 5:13 on Monday saying, you're not going to get paid until possibly Monday or Tuesday next week. And then the next communication we got was an automated thing from Doculivery on Thursday evening. How do you have time to prepare? Statutorily, we have obligations as department heads. Do you think during the pandemic I wanted to deal with 3,983 people coming through my office? No, but I was under an order by the Secretary of State to put on an election. We still had court duties to do. So, we talk about fair. I took an oath of office to uphold, and I will take my last breath upholding that office. So, what's fair is conducting statutorily what we're obligated to do. So I'm all about outsourcing payroll because if I have an emergency at my house or need an ambulance for my veteran father, I'm not going to have to worry about them if they're going to come or not. They're going to do their duties.
“So, we all have to work together,” she concluded. “We should not be worried about getting paid, period. And at the right amount. It's not rocket science. If you're hourly, you get paid hourly. Your overtime is based on overtime. Like Sheriff Miller said, I would like to keep our highways safe. We all have family members and loved ones. We travel every day on the road. You don't want to keep on getting employees disgruntled over if they're getting paid correctly or not. And this is exactly what State Board of Accounts Lori Rogers and Stacy Burns said. Going to the 27 pays. It creates a morale issue, and here we are in the pits of a morale issue. You all have to communicate with us. I'm not saying let everybody know what's going on, but you have to communicate. You don't have to give details... Sleep good tonight and make a good decision for all county employees who work hard to make this government work.”
Lucy Brenton then came forward once again to talk about the B.O.T. and the highway garage project. These comments will be included in the upcoming February 3 commissioners meeting article.
Following some further discussion between the council and the gallery, Gilbert made the motion to close the public comment period.
Deputy Auditor Michele Fleenor then chimed in on the matter as the council deliberated on how best to fix the issue.
“I’m going to give my opinion,” said Fleenor. “I've given it before and I'm going to say it again. My vote is to pay them at the 2026 pay rate, classify them all as hourly, and be done with it.”
This was met with a loud applause from the packed gallery.
“Yeah, we don't need to make our employee retention problem any worse than what it already is,” said Andrew Davisson.
This was also met with a loud applause from the gallery.
After much deliberation and back and forth discussions, the council eventually decided to amend the salary ordinance. They decided to get rid of the salary exempt classification. Instead of the three previous classifications (hourly, salary non-exempt, and salary exempt), there are now only two: hourly and salary. The council also decided to grant everyone an extra paycheck for 2026 instead of dividing what would be their annual salary by 27. If your first pay period of 2026 begins in 2025 (for instance, the first pay period of this year began on December 29, 2025 due to January 1 falling on the Thursday of that work week), you will be paid at the 2026 pay rate for the days of that week you worked in 2025. The 2026 pay rate is at a 4% increase for this year.
Following these decisions, Rodney Coats was appointed to the County Park Board. After some further discussion, the council and commissioners once again were brought back to the topic of the B.O.T. agreement and the highway garage project in the form of a heated exchange between Commissioner Todd Ewen and Councilwoman Karen Wischmeier. This topic is discussed further in the commissioners meeting that occurred the following morning, so all of the relevant information from both meetings will be compiled into the upcoming February 3 commissioners meeting article.
