Marathon County raises salaries for clerk, treasurer, registrar

By Kevin O’Brien

Whoever wins the elections for county clerk, treasurer and register of deed this fall will make significantly more money than what the positions currently pay after the county board approved increased salaries on Tuesday.

By law, the board was required to set the new salaries before candidates for the three elected positions are allowed to start circulating nomination papers on April 15.

After a lengthy discussion at its March 13 meeting, the Human Resources, Finance and Personnel (HRFP) recommended base salaries that are 10 percent higher than the minimum for employees considered to be at the same pay grade as the three elected officials. Under the committee’s recommendation, the clerk would make $93,733 in 2025, and both the treasurer and register of deeds would earn $76,511 – with 3 percent raises in 2026, 2027 and 2028.

Compared to the incumbents’ current compensation, the new “starting” salaries in 2025 would represent a 12.4 percent boost for the clerk, an 11.3 percent raise for the register of deeds and a 4.3 percent increase for the treasurer.

The committee made its recommendation based in part on a comparison of duties and responsibilities between the elected officials and comparable non-elected county employees.

County administrator Lance Leonhard said the county has long used internal compensation comparisons to set the salaries of elected officials.

“It was consistent with the analysis we’ve done in the past,” he said.

A proposal developed by human resources director Molly Adzic and Leonhard placed the city clerk in the “S” classification of employees, which includes the jail administrator, library director and the medical examiner. The treasurer and register of deeds were considered “P” class employees, which include business managers, public health supervisor and county forest administrator.

If the three elected officials were to start at the minimum pay for those pay classifications, the next clerk would start at $90,563 and the treasurer and register of deeds would both earn $73,923 in the first year of their four-year terms.

HRFP members were also presented with the salary ranges of municipal clerks and treasurers in the Wausau area, which mostly fell below their county counterparts. Adzic said the county’s “pay philosophy” is compensate employees within a range that is “competitive with that paid for similar work in our community and industry.”

County treasurer Connie Beyersdorf, however, noted that the committee was not shown the salaries of other county treasurers in the state and pointed out that the average salary is $85,000. She disagreed with the idea of comparing her position to municipal treasurers.

“To be equitable to these positions, I think the salaries should be set based on positions that are comparable statewide in other counties,” she said.

County clerk Kim Trueblood said county and municipal clerks are an “apples and oranges” comparison. For example, she said each municipal clerk oversees the election in their own municipality, whereas the county clerk is responsible for handling election results for all of the county’s 61 municipalities.

“Municipal clerks are doing the same things, but on a much smaller scale,” she said.

Register of deeds Dean Stratz said there are no municipal equivalents for his position, so he recommended looking to other counties for comparisons – but with one caveat.

“Yes, we’re driven by statute, but people interpret statutes in different ways,” he said. “You’ve got 72 counties and 72 different ways of doing things.”

Supervisor Dave Baker said it’s difficult for the board to decide on salaries based on job performance, since the voters ultimately decide who will hold the position for the next four years.

“I don’t see that it’s necessarily based on the performance of the incumbents,” he said. “Also, we have incumbents who have been in office for quite awhile, but after the election, we might have incumbents that have not been in office.”

Leonhard agreed that setting salaries for elected officials is a challenge.

“If someone is performing very well, you want to compensate them for that,” he said. “Conversely, if the performance wasn’t as up to the level as you were expecting, you’d like to account for that as well. The statute doesn’t allow you do that.”

As a result of the increased salaries, the county will spend an additional $130,149 from 2025 to 2028 on the cumulative compensation for the clerk, treasurer and registrar.