Cape County auditor proposes way to streamline pay adjustments

Looking to streamline payroll, the Cape Girardeau County Commission has asked the county auditor's office to study the feasibility of moving employee anniversary dates to Jan. 1.

Hire dates, and thereby anniversary dates for about 175 county employees, are spread out over the calendar year, with pay raises spread out accordingly. Moving as many employees as possible to the same schedule could save taxpayers money and would make easier work of budget projections, according to Cape Girardeau County Auditor Pete Frazier.

"Many of the new hires in recent years have had their start dates on Jan. 1, but it has been an inconsistent process," he said.

The county may not be able to move every employee onto the same schedule. The sheriff's department, for instance, has its own structure of merit pay. But the change could affect as much as 40 percent of the county's workforce, Frazier said.

Frazier said he couldn't speculate how much the switch would cost, but Commissioner Jay Purcell estimated the upfront expense as high as $50,000. That, he said, would be made back over time.

"There's no question there would be savings and synergies built in by having raises at the same time," he said.

At Thursday's commission meeting, Purcell said he wanted to protect his county Parks Department employees, recently given raises under a restructuring plan Purcell says will save taxpayers more than $40,000 a year.

The realignment promoted current park foreman Bryan Sander to assistant park superintendent, raising his salary from $25,536 to $30,000 a year. Sander's raise would actually be $3,825.60 annually because he was due for his normal raise in November. Full-time park laborer Jason Underwood would assume the park foreman role, with his salary rising from $20,558 to $23,400 a year.

In his proposal, Purcell had moved the employees' anniversary dates to June 1, when the raises were set to begin.

"I don't have a problem moving my guys to Jan. 1. I just want to make sure it doesn't work to their detriment, and it leaves their raises alone," the commissioner said. "If this is something we want to do countywide I don't mind, as long as we don't penalize employees."

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