THE FOLLOWING STORY IS WRITTEN BY BILL PICKETT
After reviewing wages of all those who work for Vermilion County, the County Board has approved a new contract for Juvenile Detention Center employees. Steve Fourez, chairman of the County Board’s Finance and Personnel Committee, outlined details of the agreement….
{AUDIO: ‘’It’s a 3-year agreement, 3-percent increase each year, and I think Larry said the last one is 3-and-a-half percent because we can kind of see where inflation is going. And to get that department up to where it was at I think – for the most part – amounted to a $5-dollar an hour increase to get that baseline up to where it needed to be going forward and put them kind of on a par where we’re wanting to put the rest of the county employees.’’}
Also included is a $5-thousand dollar – one-time payment for each employee.
Fourez says his committee has been carefully studying the pay for county employees….
{AUDIO: ‘’I like to look at as we were setting a new baseline for salaries to get everybody up. Because it had been…done piecemeal and nobody looked at how does this department compare with that department and this job title compare with that job title. And with everything that’s happened and the employment labor situation – we decided that we needed to do something. And the other piece of that puzzle was with the $15 minimum wage coming down the road we wanted to make sure we weren’t caught short when we had to get to that level.’’}
Fourez added the increases are possible because of some existing fund balances which have grown, and other revenue…
{AUDIO: ‘’One of the funds that we were looking for a place to be able put it to good use is the Recreational Use Tax…which is when they legalized marijuana. It provided us with a revenue stream that none of us would have imagined when they started that process.’’}
There are seven other contracts involving county employees which are yet to be approved. The goal is to have those ready for county board action next month.
