EPHRATA - Grant County employees may see pay increases this year, after they were frozen last year.

The commissioners have agreements with most of the county's bargaining units to restart the county's pay scale system. The county's system divides employees between 23 "bands," within each band there are seven steps, according to county records.

The commissioners are allowing the employees to receive step increases again, Commissioner Cindy Carter said. The decision follows 2011's freeze on pay increases and a decision in 2010 to have a 2.5 percent pay increase and no step increases.

"Sooner or later you have to give your employees some sort of increase," she said. "We said, 'If the budget was looking better this year, we would give pay raises,' and it's looking better."

She also pointed out the employees are paying more for their insurance starting last year and didn't receive a pay increase to compensate for it.

"We made a commitment to them," she said. "It's not fair to make them work three, five years without an increase and pay a larger amount for their insurance."

The employees who aren't eligible for pay increases are receiving 40 hours of discretionary leave for 2012, Carter said.

She expects the county can afford the increase when the county makes the 2013 budget in December, she said.

Assessor Laure Grammer stated the change rewards the employees who have been doing more work with less money.

With all the cutbacks the assessor's office, as well as other offices, have suffered layoffs in order to make the budget.

"With these layoffs there is a ripple effect in that some of the necessary functions of a job had to shift to other positions and many functions are simply not done because there isn't enough time," she stated. "With this in mind, those functions that are critical have moved to various remaining positions so that they now perform more work for the same money. This has the employee stretched pretty far. I think that the county's greatest resource is its employees and we need to treat them right."

Clerk Kim Allen stated previously she wanted pay increases for her employees in the 2012 budget.

Along with the increase for employees, the assessor, auditor, clerk, sheriff, treasurer and coroner are all receiving pay increases. The increase stems from a 2009 resolution which gave the six elected officials annual pay increases.

The commissioners froze the pay increases in 2011, Carter said. They decided to give the officials the increase they would have received last year.

The plan came from a 2007 study on county salaries, she said. The study showed the elected officials were making less money than some of their subordinates.

The study compared Grant County's elected officials salaries to Clallam, Grays Harbor, Mason, Lewis, Cowlitz, Skagit, Chelan, Franklin and Walla Walla counties, according to county records.

Judges' and the prosecutor's salaries are set by the state, according to county records.