Newly-elected Montgomery County Clerk Sondra Sixberry received a procedure lesson at Tuesday’s Montgomery County Council meeting.
Sixberry was asking the council to approve three part-time positions in her office, two of which she has already filled and has been paying since January.
The request and discovery that she had already paid two part-time employees did not sit well with Councilman Brett Cating.
Cating, who serves on the Employee Compensation Committee, has spent a year helping to develop the county’s employee compensation plan, which includes procedures for office holders and department heads to follow. He also was upset because there was no mention of creating the three part-time positions during the budget period, nor had Sixberry followed the guidelines established by the committee when changing a full-time position to two part-time positions and adding a third part-time position.
“Gary Booth told me while we were doing all that work that someone would come to the council and try to change what we (the compensation committee) had come up with,” Cating said. “I cannot believe it has taken only three months before we are already facing a problem. As far as I am concerned, the two employees already working should not be paid since we have not approved anything. A change in jobs and positions has to come through the council.”
Sixberry apologized and said that since she is new to the job that she did not understand the procedure.
The clerk said the two part-time employees who are already working are fulfilling the duties outlined for the full-time position. She said the third part-time job is to help the office catch up on digitizing records that have accumulated over the years and are stored in the courthouse basement. She plans to fund the new job from the clerk’s perpetuation fee fund which has adequate funds to cover the costs.
The two part-time workers already being paid are being paid by the part-time rate set by the council.
Sixberry stressed to the council that having the two part-time workers split the job of a full-time worker saves the county money because no benefits or retirement is paid for those workers.
After much discussion, the council voted to accept the two part-time employees at the part-time pay scale rate set in the county’s employee compensation instructions.
The council next voted to table the creation of the third part-time job so a job description could be created.
“I do hope you give me some grace as I learn how I should have approached this,” Sixberry said. “I am always trying to save the county money and this will do that by not paying benefits.”
Cating did not want to see any of the three part-time jobs come back next year as a request to change the jobs to full-time positions.
Montgomery County Chief Public Defender Brian Donaldson asked the council to consider participating in the Indiana Commission of Court Appointed Attorneys that could save over $200,000 in 2025. The state funded commission can reimburse the county up to 40% of public defense expenses.
ICAA executive director Derrick Mason explained how the county can join the commission and what the parameters are the county must pass to be eligible for the reimbursements.
The county participated in the program for several years before leaving the commission in 2015. Today, 68 of 92 Indiana counties are members of the commission.
Mason explained that it be easy for the county to re-join the commission. He added that in the last few years, the county has already addressed some of the conditions on their own to become eligible for the program.
One of the main hurdles for the county will be to fill two open defense attorney jobs and to hire more contract attorneys to lesson the workload on the full-time attorneys in the area of misdemeanor cases. Another hurdle is to make certain the county’s prosecutor salary is equal to what the chief defense attorney is being paid.
Montgomery County Superior Court Judge Dale Petrie was on hand to encourage the council to join the commission.
“Pay parity will help bring people into the count,” he said. “The reimbursement will help and I am on board with this happening for Brian.”
In other business, the council appointed Steve Burkell to the Linden Library board.
