Minutes 06-18-19 Regular Meeting

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30 Commissioner Price asked if staff could explain this item. Brenda Bartholomew, Human Resources (HR) Director, said HR has been working on salary and classification reviews for the last 3 years, and she said staff has been working through the lowest grade through grade 13. She said part of grade 13 was Detention Officer. She said she met with the Sheriff to discuss his department again. She said some work had previously been done with the Deputy Sheriff salary, making them competitive and equitable with towns and surrounding counties. She said this opened dialogue at looking at the Sheriff's Department, and when she met with him a few weeks ago, they intended to look at the department as a whole and wrap up the classification review. She said this also included the Sheriff's salary, and the conversation arose about how an elected official increases his salary, and there was some support for looking at this issue. She said there are different requirements for requesting a salary increase for elected officials, which is under the NC General Statutes. Brenda Bartholomew said the action agenda before the Board tonight is a request, based on all the aforementioned conversations, to increase the salary for the Sheriff and the Register of Deeds. She said the salary increases are only being given to those employees that are compressed, which the County has been addressing for several years. She said a 12.5% increase was given to compressed employees in 2015-2016, followed by a 6.25% increase the next year. She said directors were never included in any of the conversations at that time. She said since then, any time the opportunity has arisen, 25% has been applied to compression when a study is complete. She said she looked at the Sheriff's salary (approximately $121,000), and then looked at supporting counties, and his salary was very low in comparison to Durham, Guilford, and Wake. She said she made her recommendation based on that analysis, as well as the formula that staff has been applying to any reviews over the last 3-4 years. Commissioner Price asked if this process was the same for the Register of Deeds position. Brenda Bartholomew said yes. A motion was made by Commissioner Price, seconded by Commissioner Greene to approve a resolution providing notice of adjustment of the salaries of the Sheriff and Register of Deeds positions. VOTE: UNANIMOUS v. Proposed Changes to the Long-Term Housing Affordability Policy The Board considered voting to approve changes to the Long-Term Housing Affordability Policy as it relates to reporting requirements for projects financed with HOME or other federal funds in order to bring about consistency with federal regulations and to incorporate those changes, if approved, into the FY2019-20 HOME Annual Action Plan and all future Annual Action Plans. Commissioner Greene said this is a technical and complicated issue. She said she wanted to point out that HUD's requirements for affordability is usually around 40 years, and she said the DHIC in Chapel Hill is a low income housing tax credit project. She said the low income housing tax credit mechanism is the biggest renter safety net in the country for the past 30 years, but often these units are syndicates and benefit investors with tax credits. She said when the period of time is exhausted, the investors are done, and the units typically go on the open market, leaving them no longer affordable. She said the County is lucky to have DHIC locally, a committed non-profit housing provider, who keeps the units affordable indefinitely. She said CASA, Community Home Trust and the County are other agencies doing this same work, and she wanted to highlight this effort to maintain permanent affordability.