The Blaine County Commission said it needs more details before it can decide on a request by Sheriff Walt Femling for salary increases to compensate eight members of his force for additional work providing police services to Ketchum.
At a meeting at the Old County Courthouse in Hailey on Tuesday, Femling said the contract for his office to take over law enforcement duties in Ketchum has increased the burden on his supervisors and has highlighted a disparity in the salaries between the county officers and those previously employed by the city.
The contract, which went into effect July 1, included a $1.56 million payment from Ketchum to the county to provide law enforcement through the end of fiscal 2010.
Within the contract was a management fee of $54,855, including salary and benefits, that Femling said should go to seven officers, including himself, Chief Deputy Gene Ramsey, Capt. Ed Fuller, a lieutenant and three sergeants. As well, a portion of the fee would go to a county clerk for additional payroll duties.
The figure was calculated with the estimate that the officers and the clerk were each spending between 2.5 and 4.5 hours per week on their new duties.
The city is paying the management fee, but the county has not allocated the funds yet, with the commissioners saying they need a detailed work plan before they can spend it. There was no discussion as to how that funding would be spent if the salary increases were not approved.
"Our people taking over in Ketchum have seen drastic changes in their work descriptions," Femling told the commissioners. "As well, the salary parity is a big issue—creating a solid team is hard to do with a large discrepancy in pay. This fee doesn't inflate salaries—it just brings them to where they should be."
Ketchum officers had been receiving a higher base salary than their county counterparts. During contract negotiations, the Ketchum City Council was adamant that its officers not have to take a pay cut as a result of the change in management.
While Ketchum City Administrator Gary Marks did not offer an opinion on Femling's salary request, stating that it is an internal county matter, he did say that the city has been satisfied with the service over the first three months of the contract.
"We're very happy with the service so far and the transition has been fairly seamless and morale is clearly up," Marks said. "When we signed the contract, we supported the management fee because we wanted to pay our own way."
Commission Chairman Larry Schoen said the request was problematic in that the board had set a policy to make no salary adjustments in the upcoming fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1.
However, County Administrator Derek Voss said that while the board agreed that no raises would be given based on merit, the commission could still approve an increase due to changes in job description or responsibilities.
Voss said the commission could consider the issue if Femling could provide proof that new job descriptions differ enough to warrant the raises. Femling said he would work with Voss to provide the commission with those details.
The commissioners said such a document would be important to show employees in other departments that any salary increases were fairly administered.
Jon Duval: jduval@mtexpress.com
