A Marshall County Community Corrections employee went before the county council members Wednesday morning to bring up an issue with pay for employees within that organization.
Charles Bowen, Jr. is a case manager and field officer with Marshall County Community Corrections and has served in that position for nearly four years, coming to the county with additional years of experience. He wanted some answers on the council’s recent adoption of the salary ordinance.
“With the freezing of 11 out of the 13 Community Corrections employees’ salaries, what is the expectation of the new ordinance in regards to looking like it’s targeting one particular office? There’s only a small handful of other county employees who have been affected by the freeze. Those individuals are spread throughout multiple agencies and not just one agency like in our case,” stated Bowen.
Bowen asked what position serves as the standard when comparing salaries in Community Corrections.
“The closest to our line of work is a probation officer. If you compare my experience and education level of that to a similar probation officer, I’m actually underpaid for the work I do. I do understand the probation officer’s salary is mandated by the State, but the county still has to pay it. It is still a very close comparison to the duties we perform at Community Corrections.”
Bowen also made the point that Community Corrections saves the county about $2 million a year in incarceration costs with the programs they provide to offenders. He also noted that funding for the organization does not come from the county. It comes from grants. However, the employees are identified as county employees.
At the council’s meeting in October, the county council members approved a recommendation of a subcommittee tasked with realigning job descriptions and salaries with information compiled by Waggoner, Irwin and Scheele. During that meeting, Councilman Jon VanVactor said the subcommittee was able to find the prevailing wage for each category and bring all salaries in line for each category. At the time, he said that some positions will see an increase in pay while seven employees would not receive an increase in wages until everyone else in that category rose to the level where those employees are currently standing.
Following those determinations, it was also recommended that all employees receive a 25-cent-per-hour increase.
In reaction to Bowen’s presentation on Wednesday morning, County Council President Judy Stone asked to have a copy of Bowen’s notes to review. Once the information is researched, she said she will sit down with him and go over his pointed questions with educated answers.
