The Flathead County commissioners on Wednesday approved a bigger-than-expected pay raise for county employees, awarding a 3.5 percent cost-of-living adjustment instead of the proposed 3 percent increase.

The additional 0.5 percent increase will bump up the county’s $20 million annual payroll by about $100,000.

The vote was 2-1, with Commissioners Gary Krueger and Cal Scott voting in favor and Pam Holmquist opposed.

The commissioners also OK’d a 7 percent pay raise for Finance Director Sandy Carlson, increasing her pay to $81,119 annually.

Last week the commissioners granted a 3 percent pay raise for the county’s elected officials and sheriff’s deputies. Typically a comparable cost-of-living raise is applied to all county employees out of fairness.

Commissioner Cal Scott said his rationale for supporting the 3.5 percent raise centers around the belt-tightening county departments were asked to undertake over the past six years because of the sluggish economy.

“All Flathead County [departments] suffered through this and have amended their expenditures. Department heads were asked to hold back,” Scott said. “Our economy is not robust, but it has picked up a little bit.”

It behooves Flathead County to bring its wages in line with similar “sister” counties, such as Gallatin County, Scott said.

“Our people in Flathead County have had their typical COLA (cost-of-living adjustment) held back by about 4 percent” over the past several years, he said, noting county employees are being asked to increase their retirement set-aside by 1.1 percent in the coming year.

Commissioner Gary Krueger agreed, saying he has “felt all along we need to correct some wages.

“This starts to make the adjustments we need,” Krueger said.

He had pushed for additional pay increases beyond the 3 percent cost-of-living raise, suggesting a 25-cent hourly increase for most county employees and a $1 an hour increase for deputy county attorneys. Those proposals were sidelined in favor of the across-the-board 3.5 percent raise.

Commissioner Pam Holmquist opposed the 3.5 percent raise because a 3 percent adjustment was considered throughout the budget discussions and matches what was approved for elected officials. It’s premature to raise wages that much without first conducting a wage study, she stressed.

The consensus among the commissioners was to move forward with a wage and salary review early next year, but they will take a formal vote on the study on Monday. The last time a salary survey was completed for all county positions was in 2006.

County Human Resource Officer Tammy Skramovsky had recommended denying the pay raise for the finance director until a comprehensive salary survey for all county positions can be done, “instead of granting a wage increase to a single department.”

Krueger and Holmquist voted to raise Carlson’s salary while Scott was opposed.

Carlson has taken on more work in her department because the county has reduced its contracted services, and she also now supervises the finance technician position at the 911 Emergency Dispatch Center.

Scott said he recognizes the increased workload, but wanted to wait until a study could look at all departments “rather than subjectively make a decision with a lack of full data.”

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.