The county commissioners met Tuesday morning to discuss the next years budget for many Athens County offices, resulting in two offices seeing their employees receive increased salaries.
The Athens County Commissioners discussed next year’s budgets for numerous offices in Athens at their Tuesday meeting, resulting in an increased minimum wage for local poll workers and higher employee salary at the Athens County Prosecutor’s office.
One group to present at the meeting was the Athens County Prosecutor’s Office. Its budget was up $4,600 from last year because of “additional expenses like computers and other supplies,” Athens County Prosecutor Keller Blackburn said.
The office’s budget to date came in at around $679,000, though it will see a boost in next year’s budget to compensate for an increase in employee salary.
Another organization that made an appearance Tuesday was the Athens County Common Pleas Court. This year, its office saw an increase in attorney fees, though that was “canceled out” by its low advertising and printing fees due to new cost-efficient techniques, a representative said.
The office’s budget to date was approximately $411,000.
Another group at the meeting was the Athens County Board of Election, who was represented by Director Debbie Quivey and Deputy Director Penny Brooks. The board’s budget came in at around $474,000 to date.
The original budget for the board next year was set at $475,000. However, Quivey and Brooks requested to increase the minimum wage for the poll workers from $7.25 per hour to $8.10 per hour. said
“Athens poll workers are paid much less compared to other counties,” Quivey said. “We are paying them the absolute minimum.”
Commissioner Chris Chmiel joked that poll workers weren’t deserving of a pay increase due to other benefits they typically receive.
“I mean, they already get free donuts and coffee,” he said.
The commissioners approved the request for a $6,000 budget increase, making the board’s total budget rest at $481,000.
The commissioners also attended to some non-budget related subjects, including a meeting with the Athens County Department of Job and Family Services Director Jack Frech.
Frech submitted a job description for the position of Director of Job and Family Services, which will be used to fill the opening at the end of the year when he retires.
According to the description submitted by Frech, 85 percent of the job includes working with families to develop and implement guidelines to better the county, 10 percent of the job is dealing with disciplinary issues or actions and the final 5 percent deals with any related duties assigned by the county commissioners.
The final order of business that commissioners attended to was with Athens County Emergency Medical Services Chief Rick Callebs and a position change between the Nelsonville-York and Athens branches.
Chris Carrick will make the lateral transfer from Athens to Nelsonville to fill an open full-time position.
Because of the change, Callebs requested to make an internal posting at the Athens station to fill the position that Carrick will leave.
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