WALLACE –– The Shoshone County Commissioners made a significant change to the county’s pay scale last week, when they adopted an interim pay matrix.   

The change will affect all employees of departments housed within the courthouse, with the exception of the elected officials and the county roads department.  

Under the previous board, the departments had been tasked with creating their own pay matrix, determining how they would pay each employee based on experience, skill, and tenure. Reportedly, this created a headache within the county clerk’s office, which currently employs one pay clerk for the entire county. 

Instead of multiple pay matrices, the county will now operate under a single matrix, with unified step and grade increases, simplifying the payroll process for the clerk’s office.  

Concerns over employee pay and how it might be affected were raised during a meeting between the board and several of the elected officials. However, according to Interim Clerk Peggy White, none of the affected employees will see a reduction in pay, instead they will see a slight increase.  

Earlier this year, as the county prepared its annual budget, $148,000 was earmarked for increasing wages. Each employee operating under the new pay scale will receive a minimum 1% raise.  

Commissioner Jeff Zimmerman acknowledged that this increase might not come close to what some employees may have been due to receive, but reportedly budgetary issues would’ve stymied most of the step and grade raises the county was due to hand out.  

Wage discrepancies within the various departments have reportedly led to a bit of bad blood between the offices, with several people in similar jobs making vastly different amounts of money. Because of this, the county has been working toward getting a wage study completed, but even that process has hit a few roadblocks.  

“The whole purpose was to catch up the clerk’s side and everybody else with the roads department and the sheriff’s department to make it more even,” Zimmerman said. “I would think, being that this is an interim system that we approve it upon getting a wage study. This is going to change, we are getting the wage study this year and I think during the interim this would put everybody on the same (scale). We didn’t change anything, just the amounts changed.”  

Once that wage study is completed, the commissioners expect to sit with the clerk, other elected officials and department heads to determine the county’s new pay matrix. 

Shoshone County’s Roads Department, Sheriff’s Office, and Solid Waste will continue to operate under their independent matrices for the time being.