Sullivan to look
at salaries

By DAVID HULSE

MONTICELLO — Sullivan County legislators on January 17 took their first cautious steps at the long-standing problem of salary equity.

The county has no ongoing standard for setting salaries, and last minute resolutions for individual salary increases are a tradition immediately prior to annual budget adoption votes.

Piecemeal changes to the salary structure have left some positions, like probation officers and registered nurses, under-funded to the point where Sullivan has great difficulty attracting new employees.

Legislator Kathy LaBuda (D-2) noted that Sullivan often winds up training employees, who then leave for more lucrative positions elsewhere.

Rodney Gaebel (RC-5) counseled caution. “I don’t want to be married to the results…. I don’t want people to think they’re getting new salaries automatically because of the study results,”  he warned fellow legislators.

General Services Committee chair Chris Cunningham (DC-1) said the staff already has some data prepared in earlier efforts to deal with salary structures. “We’re going to look at our options, what others have done. We’ll take it one step at a time,” he said.

Cunningham said he hoped to have options for the committee’s review at their March meeting.