A pay increase for the election workers who handle the various kinds of absentee voting was approved by Monroe County councilors at their regular Tuesday meeting.
The workers who will receive some additional pay are those who process mail-in absentee ballots, the “leads” who help train poll workers, and the workers who handle early in-person voting.
At its meeting two weeks ago, the council approved a change from per diem to hourly compensation, which had the effect of reducing compensation for some workers.
Tuesday’s pay increase was, as councilor Geoff McKim put it, an attempt “to fix something that we did, that we got wrong.”
On Tuesday, the pay for three subcategories of election workers was increased from: $17 to $20 an hour; from $18.50 to $25 per hour; and from $20 to $33 per hour.
But the county council declined a request that the recently appointed election supervisor, who was an internal hire, receive some additional compensation, retroactive to a point before she was officially appointed to the position.
The wording of the council’s motion on the question of retroactive pay put a positive spin on their effective denial of the request. The council’s motion just reaffirmed the date of the actual appointment, which was Feb. 12.
That meant there would be no additional compensation for the new hire, Kylie Moreland, to cover the four weeks before Feb. 12. For that time, Moreland was already performing the duties of election supervisor, according to chief deputy clerk Laura Wert.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Wert ticked through a list of duties that Moreland had performed before she was officially appointed as election supervisor.
Councilor Marty Hawk responded by focusing on what Moreland’s official start date was. Hawk indicated that in departments across county government, it was not uncommon for people to start doing work as a kind of “interim” for the position to which they were eventually hired—but there were never requests for retroactive pay.
As an example, Hawk gave Bri Gregory, who effectively performed the duties of county auditor for the three weeks after auditor Cathy Smith was caucused into the vacant treasurer’s position, and before Gregory was caucused into the auditor’s job.
Responding to Hawk’s statement, councilor Geoff McKim said he did not realize that employees serving in a role in an interim capacity were not actually paid for that role.
About the situation with the election supervisor, McKim said, “They have a salary ordinance, and they have a budget line with an appropriation in it. I guess I don’t see why she wasn’t paid from that line from the beginning when she started actually doing the job.”
Except for McKim, councilors were in agreement with Hawk—that the request should be denied. But Wiltz wanted the council’s motion to be phrased in a positive way—simply affirming that the start date for Moreland’s appointment as election supervisor was Feb. 12.
The vote on that motion was 6–1 on the seven-member council, with McKim dissenting.
The county council’s action two weeks ago, to convert compensation for absentee election workers from per diem amounts to hourly, actually decreased compensation for some workers. They had been receiving a per diem amount of $140 a day. The council had initially converted that to an hourly rate of $17.50—based on an 8-hour day.
Councilor Kate Wiltz got confirmation from Moreland that a 12-hour day was getting split into two 6-hour days for the sake of per diem payments. That meant the hourly equivalent of a $140 per diem was $140/6 = $23.33.
At its meeting two weeks ago, the council had amended the proposal to increase the hourly rates, but they still fell short of making election workers whole.
| Category | Proposed March 12 | Amended March 12 | OK’d March 26 |
| A | $17.00 | $17.00 | $20.00 |
| B | $17.50 | $18.50 | $25.00 |
| C | $18.00 | $20.00 | $33.00 |
About the hourly rates up for adoption on Tuesday, McKim said, “I think they provide fair wages for the absentee workers, and also help achieve some of those goals for increasing their pay.”
On Tuesday the council also took action to increase the per diem amount for election worker recruiters, from $140 to $200. Recruiters are responsible for persuading people to serve as Election Day poll workers as well as absentee election workers.
When their pay was reduced, it had caused some of the absentee election workers to contemplate quitting. Asked by council president Trent Deckard, if the proposed rates would stave off the departure of election workers, Moreland said, “I think it’ll reduce the fact that we will lose employees and election workers in general.”
But Moreland added that the pay rate would, in the future, need to be increased more to retain the absentee election workers. Moreland also said that she has started getting calls from Election Day workers about compensation.
Deckard indicated that the compensation of Election Day poll workers is the statutory responsibility of the county commissioners, not the county council. “We will defer to them on that,” Deckard said.
