The third time wasn’t a charm for
county elected leaders. On the last day of the 2014 Legislative session SB 379
failed to make it out of a conference committee.
The legislation called for pay
raises for county commissioners, county clerks, sheriffs, circuit clerks,
assessors and prosecutors. The 12 percent raise would have taken effect
starting in 2017, 11 years after their last raise.
Patti Hamilton, the executive
director of the West Virginia Association of Counties, thought the bill had a
good chance. The Senate passed it unanimously. The House gave it the green
light by a wide margin with a few changes, but when it went back to the Senate
it didn’t get any traction.
“The surprise was that the Senate,
at the very late hour of 11:30 p.m., refused to concur with the House
amendment,” explained Hamilton
She said, after weeks of lobbying
for the bill, elected county leaders were shocked.
“I know the county officials that
worked very hard on it, who were there to the bitter end, were beyond
disappointed. They were devastated,” stressed Hamilton
They pay raises wouldn’t have come
from state coffers. It would have come from county money. The auditor could
only sign off on a raise if the county had additional cash to pay for the
increase.
“I worked on a pay raise bill in
2002 that was 10 percent. I worked on one in 2006 that was 20 percent. Why this
has become so difficult, I couldn’t tell you,” said Hamilton
However, she knows one thing for
sure.
“They’ll try again next year.”
