Elk County Employees

[Wilma]

As promised, I am going to talk about Elk County Employees.  Last night on another thread I learned that our road crews are paid $8.00 per hour.  I was getting more than this as a clerk/typist when I retired in 1991. They work a 40 hour week and are paid once a month.  One hundred sixty hours at $8.00 per = $1280.00 a month.  After all the withholdings are taken out, the take home pay would be about $900.00.  Our workers have the same expenses the rest of us have, including rent or house payments, car payments, utilities.  After adding up my necessary expenses there isn't much left out of that $900.00. 

I am shocked but I don't know what I can do about it except to let other Elk Countians know.  With wages like this I can only assume that these workers are in Elk County for the same reason I am.  Because this is where they want to be. We can all be more tolerant.  I am sure that the road crews are not the only county employees that should be paid more.  I am sure they would be paid more if it were possible.  I hope that when Elk County receives their payment from the wind farm that there will be raises for these people.  I can't think of anything that is more necessary.

Meanwhile, I can say, I do not and will not complain about the taxes I pay, especially the ones in Elk County.

[L Hendricks]

Wilma - I definitely agree - our road crew is underpaid.  Their hourly rate ranges from $9.19 on up to the highest is getting $12.90 per hour.  This has been a problem for a long time.  The road crew is the only personnel that got raises this year.  And that was a struggle given the economy.  There is always different views to this also.  The road dept is the largest dept in the county and we all know how badly our county taxes went up.  I also can tell you that the road dept is the one I hear the most complaints about also.  So do you reward people for bad performance, tardiness, destruction of county equipment...on the other hand, a person can barely survive on these wages.  And we all know that to attract good people you have to pay them decent.  I believe that we can make head ways with this department, but it is going to take a long time to turn around the last 20 years of mismanagement.  I will also put in my 2 cents on the wind farm.  Folks, we have very little chance to turn this county around and we have the opportunity knocking (begging) to come in.  Please let it happen and be supportive of it.  The alternative does not look positive.

[Wilma]

You have my support, Liz.  I see the wind towers everytime I go west and they appear so peaceful to me.  I haven't been close to them, but I have been in the oil fields in Oklahoma and I was surprised as to the condition of the surrounding fields.  They  were green, cattle were grazing contentedly, right amongst the pumps.  The wind towers can't be anymore destructive than that.  If there were going to be problems, I would think they would have developed by now with the ones at Beaumont.

[Varmit]

  I also can tell you that the road dept is the one I hear the most complaints about also.  So do you reward people for bad performance, tardiness, destruction of county equipment...on the other hand, a person can barely survive on these wages.  And we all know that to attract good people you have to pay them decent. 

I think that for the most part the people on the road crew are good people. They have miles and miles of road to take care of and very few resources to do it with.  They cannot be everywhere at once.  Perhaps if folks using the county roads would slow down the roads wouldn't be so bad.

[S-S]

I've slowed down, only because of the pot holes and washouts.

[Lookatmeknow!!]

I do know that they have really tried to fix the roads out to our house, but with all the rain, it is kind of a lost cause right now.  They put gravel down last week or the first of this week, and the roads are back to the same bad way.  I know that it isn't the county employees problem.  It's just the weather that we have been having.  I know, for the most part who grades our roads, and the guys that do our roads try hard.  They are gravel roads not pavement.  I feel the opposite that the faster you drive the pot holes don't seem as bad- LOL!!  Just kidding!!!

[Tobina+1]

Not trying to step on anyone's toes around here, so read this post carefully.  This is not just aimed at county workers, but small-town workers in general...
It's a fine line with employees when you live in a low population area like we do.  You want to support the local workers by offering them jobs, but they may not have been trained specifically for that type of work, either.  And sometimes training has to be done by fire... "here's the keys, you'll figure it out".  It may be more difficult for employers to get training programs to come here, or too expensive to send employees elsewhere for proper training.  This goes for any local job, not just the road crew!

So, do you support the local workers who maybe don't have the proper training, but are willing to get paid less... or do you become more specific in your hiring process and only hire those who qualify and pay them more (but have fewer people apply and to choose from)?  It's a "catch 22" problem, I think. 

I also think that employees should be paid fairly (including cost of living raises), but I'm a firm believer that additional raises and bonuses should be based on productivity and performance (measurable!).  A guy who has been working for 10+ years shouldn't get a large raise if all he does is lean on a shovel or damage equipment.  And the guy who has only worked 1 year but really shows good performance in his workmanship shouldn't get passed by a raise just because he hasn't worked long enough.  Yes, you risk stepping on toes, especially with small workforces and local workers, but the employer has to decide what's more valuable.  I think eventually if you start rewarding the good and punishing the bad (even as far as firing people because they just can't do the job), you'll get better performance all the way around.  Then "the bar" continues to rise for performance evaluations and rewards. 

Also, remember that rewards and bonuses don't have to come in the monetary format, either.  How about a "free day" to the top employee each month?  Or the boss taking someone out for lunch?  Especially when it's a team effort type job, employers can still reward good performance with sometimes little effort!  My brothers work for construction companies and their bosses take them out on the lake, or to go fishing at least once a month during the summer.

[pepelect]

Maybe we should go to 3 days a week.   13.5 hours is about all the dry not raining time we have been having lately.   

How is it that you can't build a pond with out the division of water resources all up in your business but you can channel the water down a non natural county road and blame it on not getting paid very well?

Is there any way we can start a program where we build a mile of road as a place to show off our skills?  One that doesn't need constant grading.  Where the water runs down the ditch not the middle of the road.   Something that you could say hey I built that two years ago and we haven't had to touch it since.  Then go to the next adjacent mile and do the same thing.


As long as you have a boss you are going to have someone looking over your shoulder wanting you to do more with less.  The boss in this case is every tax payer in the county.  So if you quit trying to confront your bosses every time one says something you don't appreciate and do something that will get them to pat you on the back the better off both will be.  Doctors, lawyers, and teachers usually can't fix roads or should not even try but they are paying your salary.  Every one has an opinion but if you live here you have the unique position as you are your own boss.  If you  pay taxes then you can bitch as much as everyone else about low pay and lack of support from the public.

A lot of the problem is the ignorance of us the general public.   Maybe is the accepted norm that you are still getting donuts at 7:30.  Why should I care if you road equipment every day?  Just because my watch says it is 2:15 that doesn't mean that it takes two hours to get back to the yard. 

Have you driven down some of our fine roads while it is raining?  Should we as citizens with digital cameras and a transit prove to you that a smooth road with high ditches is just a ditch in smooth road clothing?  Water will not flow uphill.  It will not jump over the windrow of crap you leave on the side of the road.  It will not wait patiently while the three foot culvert empties as the 480 acres of water behind it backs up.

While I am alienating everyone else I want to mention the one shop plan.   Why wouldn't a large fully functional facility be better than three strong barn sided pole barns with old signs for windows?  The state of Kansas has less than 50 miles of highway to maintain in Elk county and they don't even try to maintain three separate buildings and I think they even have a special waste of money department.

[Diane Amberg]

So, black top them all (the roads, not the county workers) and be done with it. No more greasy mud.Ya high crown them a bit and the runoff goes right into the ditches. It would only cost a few billion. Have your DC reps get ya some of dat dere stimulus $$$. Makes new jobs too.

[pepelect]

I don't how to fund it but if we would have done that 30 years ago........We were just as broke then.   It can't take as much money over the life time of the road to maintain an asphalt road.  You will have a large upfront cost and then minimal maintenance.....NOT.... The ground around here is so unstable concrete cracks let alone all the asphalt breaking up all the time.  The roads that were recently overlaid look as bad or worse now not because of the overlay but for the state of the base underneath it. 

We don't have any pull in DC for the stimulus money.  Only the health care dollars(ex gov sec of health and human services) and then we could use that to build a coal fired electric plant now that she is gone.