By Nicole Montesano • Staff Writer • 

Union members attend commission meeting

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Comments

tagup

So... if they do a wage study and find the Yamhill county wage is higher than comparable pay in other counties do the employees get a wage reduction?.....yeah, didn't think so.....

Lulu

How about engaging an outside firm to conduct this survey for, say, $20,000?

tagup

Or maybe compare compensation with other positions in the private sector, not just other counties....

Watching From The Sidelines

You don't compare public wages to private wages...that's comparing apples to oranges..

Watching From The Sidelines

Wage comparisons show that yamhill county is paid lower in all areas...one in particular by over 40%...and you wonder why employees don't stay...a wage comparison is done for the county administrator and she immediately gets her raise and then the county creates a deputy administrator position to take some of the workload off of her (she gets a raise and her workload gets reduced? Hmm) And the county is paying for the deputy administrator when that money could go to the employees!!

tagup

It might be apples to oranges to a county employee...but I doubt taxpayers would agree...especially when we hear how "grossly underpaid" the county employees are.

Watching From The Sidelines

Tagup you are FOS....you have a very one sided opinion. Do you work in management at the county? If you do you are probably overpaid, also. Most county employees do not make even close to $35k and get the perks management does ie working 'at home', not having to write down FET, vehicles supplied with the fuel to drive to/from work, clothes supplied and laundered, daily overtime hours, call out time, beeper time.....and I could go on. If you add in these additional benefits for management you are talking a pretty good set of numbers. So yeah do a wage study and maybe get rid of some highly overpaid management positions! As a taxpayer I know there are overpaid managers on staff!!!

tagup

Sounds like you are more than just a taxpayer....not sure “watching from the sidelines” is an accurate name....and no I don’t work for the county...I’ve been private sector non union for 30 years.
So why shouldn’t county positions be compared to the private sector for wage classifications and benefits?..... clerical is clerical, mechanics are mechanics, IT is IT..... skills in most cases are identical......does employment at the county require additional skill?....I don’t think so......The difference is who pays the tab.....government has no profit motive ( which of course the union recognizes)vs a business that needs to compete to keep the doors open......my hunch is, vs the private sector there are many overpaid positions both labor and management......I may appear to be FOS to you but only because you(likely) live under the union security blanket....

Watching From The Sidelines

Hahahaha..Tagin or up whatever....I see I struck a nerve.
No I do not work for the county, in fact I am a very successful farm owner that may soon put my hat in the commissioners race. I follow the revenue and budget areas of the county because I pay some steep taxes and want to see how it is disbursed. Unfortunately I see a lot of waste. As I stated the Administrator is overpaid and does not need a deputy, I see that the commissioners are overpaid and continue to accept raises and a very BIG concern is the public works director that makes $100k. Kant to be more involved in getting back to the true basics, not follow the patterns of greed and disrespect we are seeing everywhere.

eclipse

"Watching from the Sidelines", you've got my vote already. IMO, this issue is much bigger than 1.75% vs. 2.0% COLAs. Many years ago county management successfuly implemented "interest based" bargaining with the union and county employees. It worked! Then the employees said that since they were being treated with respect and reason they no longer needed a union so bye bye to SEIU. The employees association represented themselves, met with a team of managers to negotiate and there were many years of reasonable, respectable negotiations that resulted in fairness and respect to both sides. What a concept! Enter the likes of Lewis, George, Springer, Tschbold, and Vesper who's attitude was to treat employees like trash. About five to seven years ago county admin and commissioners decided that interest based bargaining was a huge waste of time and hired Diana Moffitt who is a known union hater(look at her website). One round of positional bargaining from county administration and the employees knew they were being taken advantage of. They voted to bring AFSCME(professional union) back into the fray. The responsibility for all of this present mess lies squarely with county administration. In the meantime the admin wages were skyrocketing while the people who actually perform the work were being berated and bullied. It has just now come to a head in this round of negotiations. The county is a mess in a number of areas and indeed lots of housecleaning needs to be performed. The citizens are the ones who lose in this deal but the responsibility is NOT with the employees. Related to this is the fact that the next biggest county to have a deputy administrator is Washington County which is over five times the size of Yamhill County. The Commissioners need to do their job as they did for decades. No county administrator or deputy is needed. One last point. Notice how the county admin uses comparable counties only when its to her advantage?

tagup

Ahh....now it becomes clear....you want to run for office.

As a “very successful farmer” (your modesty is overwhelming) I wonder if you paid union scale wages and offered the same benefits as those offered to county employees?.....I doubt it!
The nerve you struck was the one where taxpayers get to pay more for labor than the private sector for no particular reason.
You say you see waste....but only on the management side? Or is that the best place to to begin the process to disparage your future election opponent...?

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