At the Oct. 1 meeting of the Wright County Board of Commissioners, Commissioner Nadine Schoen asked for an item to be added to the consent agenda. This isn’t a rare occurrence, but what Schoen proposed was.
“In light of this year’s budget – so much appreciation goes out to our department leadership and staff for all the sacrifices and hard work put in to get to the 2025 budget,” Schoen said. “Because of this, I would like to make a motion not to adopt a resolution to increase the commissioners’ salary for 2025 – to show that we are dedicated to a trim budget for the upcoming year. I feel like it shows solidarity that we also are willing to do what we need to do and make sacrifices.”
Commissioner Tina Diedrick said she was surprised by the 11th hour addition to the board agenda, adding that there could be other avenues explored to reduce the commissioner budget other than a wage freeze.
“I still have the same pressures with inflation and increases in property taxes as everyone else who is affected the same way,” Diedrick said. “I’m not asking for anything above and beyond what our employees have been guaranteed (for 2025). I think we should look at other ways commissioners could cut – maybe expenses or those types of things. Wage is something that we live on and to make this (proposal) abruptly at a board meeting without in-depth discussion and those numbers in front of us, I would oppose this.”
Commissioner Jeanne Holland said her goal coming into the budget process was a zero increase to the levy. However, due to rising costs, union contracts, health insurance increases and the need to keep departments operating with a growing population, a zero percent increase wasn’t feasible. She felt this was an opportunity to show employees that the county board was literally willing to put their money where their mouth is.
“I think this is something to show the staff that we are serious, we respect the fact that they took some big cuts and I think now is a time to show solidarity,” Holland said. “We’re here to serve the people. Our forefathers didn’t have (government) to be a money-making venture. We’re here to serve the residents of Wright County. This is what I wanted the whole time – a zero percent (levy increase), especially with these challenging times that we’re in.”
Board Chair Darek Vetsch said, as a family man with young children, he feels the economic pressures like everyone else and many employees in the public sector aren’t given cost of living raises – having to make do with the same wage and higher prices. He agreed that the decision to freeze commissioner wages for 2025 is appropriate given the volatile economic climate.
“As a working member of the community and a representative of them, I understand the challenges we’re seeing out there – the solidarity of it because many people are seeing no (wage) increases at all,” Vetsch said. “The greater temperature that we have as a board is with the citizenship of the county. Gauging the economic climate and the struggles of the citizens of the county is what we need to embrace first and foremost.”
The board voted 4-1 to approve not conducting the annual committee meeting to discuss commissioner salaries for 2025 and retain the salaries at the 2024 level ($71,813). Diedrick voted against the measure, citing that there were other portions of the county board budget that could be reduced to lower the total. The board authorized Finance to remove the amount earmarked for a board salary increase from the budget.
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