Etowah County approves $27 million budget with raises for employees

Shane Ellison, Etowah County’s chief administrative officer, summed it up: “You can’t operate a service business without people.”

And the people who make that particular “business” work — county employees — were the big winners in the $27,024,955 Fiscal Year 2024 General Fund budget passed unanimously on Tuesday by the County Commission.

That’s a 7.6% increase over the Fiscal Year 2023 budget of $25,105,654. Personnel costs and associated benefits make up 61% of the budget, according to Kevin Dollar, the county’s chief financial officer, who’s been working on the document since July and went over it in detail with commissioners.

"Sonny Brasfield (director of the Association of County Commissions of Alabama) always says that the 67 counties in Alabama are a county family,” Dollar said. “And I say that the employees in Etowah County are the Etowah County family.”

Employees in classified positions will receive pay increases of 7.5% or more; those in non-classified or salaried positions will get a 5% hike.

"We started out with a one-step raise, which we always do, of 2.5%, then went to two,” Ellison said. “And when we got to two, we stopped and started looking at our pay plan and all the various positions and the rate groups that they fall under.”

The first eight salary rate groups have been eliminated, shifting all employees upward. So were the first six salary steps, to rectify what Ellison called a “consistently inconsistent” situation caused by scale changes over the years that had employees actually starting at different steps.

“That makes everyone on Step 1 of whatever grade that job position might fall under,” he said. “We’re also adding six steps to the plan, which is good because we’ve already had some employees go off the chart.”

The minimum starting pay for a classified position is now $12 an hour, although Ellison said few if any employes currently make that.

In addition, the county is absorbing $105,190 of a 3.5% increase in health insurance costs for employees.

“Kevin has looked at every penny we spend,” Ellison said, praising Dollar and other county officials who helped him with the budget for their efforts. “This is a very good budget. It’s a major increase over last year, but we’re proud of this budget. It does a lot of things for Etowah County and, more specifically, for the personnel of Etowah County.”

The projected revenue growth over 2023 is $900,000 in ad valorem property taxes, $400,000 in simplified sales use taxes (on internet sales), $300,000 in ad valorem motor vehicle taxes, $155,000 from municipalities for housing inmates in the county jail, $150,000 in revenue commissioner fees and $150,000 in county sales taxes.

Projected expenditures are up 7.8% over Fiscal Year 2023, with the bulk seen in law enforcement, $15,787,591, followed by general operations, $8,753,606; transfers out (to things like Rural Transportation, RSVP and various funds), $1,601,117; judicial operations, $521,696; and outside agencies, $360,865.

The biggest single items in the budget are law enforcement related and received increases: the sheriff’s office, 9% to $7,579.142; and jail operations, 3.9% to $7,281,396.

Sheriff Jonathon Horton was happy with the outcome and thanked Ellison, Dollar and the commissioners for their efforts and consideration.

“I was holding my breath,” he said. “... We had some long meetings, but this means a lot not just to me, but to our employees.”

Horton noted that there’s been a 30% increase in pay, nearly $4 an hour, for sheriff’s and detention deputies over the last three years.

“When companies come to look at the megasite, they look at the safety of the community, so we all play a role,” he added. “It’s not as much as we asked for, but I have full confidence that you squeezed every penny.”

Notable new expenditures include software to upgrade land recording and business licenses in the probate office; and tag and title, computer aided map appraisals and property tax collections in the revenue commissioner’s office.

“That should be helpful to the public,” Ellison said, “but also for the staff so that they can communicate and, more importantly, cross-train more easily.”

Also added were the county’s commitments to the Advanced Manufacturing Training and Skills Center at Gadsden State Community College ($100,000 over four years) and the Challenger Learning Center ($100,000 over five years).

This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: Employees are big winners in Etowah County's Fiscal Year 2024 budget