County clerk of courts seeks mid-term pay raise

Taylor County Clerk of Courts Jill Scheithauer is asking county supervisors to give her a $5-per-hour raise midway through her current in term in office, which she believes is allowed under state law even though salaries for constitutional officers are normally only set right before an election is held.

Scheithauer, whose current term ends in 2026, spoke to the county’s Finance and Personnel Committee at its April 11 meeting, presenting multiple documents in support of her request for a raise, even though her position will not be on the ballot in November.

First, she provided meeting minutes from Feb. 8, 2018, which indicate that consultants from Carlson Dettman recommended the clerk of courts position be classified as a “Grade M” employee with a control point wage (100 percent of the market rate). She also cited the county’s 2024 classification and compensation plan, which sets the Grade M control point wage at $40.32 per hour – $5.07 more than what she currently earns.

Scheithauer also provided a copy of Wisconsin Statute 59.22(1)(a)(1), which says that compensation for elected officers like herself “shall not be increased or diminished during the officer’s term and shall remain for ensuing terms unless changed by the board (her emphasis).” That same section of statute also says the board must establish annual compensation for elected officers (other than supervisors and circuit judges) “prior to the earliest time for filing nomination papers.”

“I feel that language is quite vague, because the clerk of court, along with other elected officials, are department heads, which are also known as ‘supervisors,’” she said. “I believe this opens up the ability to adjust an elected official’s salary outside of the term in which the official is serving.”

“Supervisors” is the official term for members of the county board, who are also authorized to set their own salaries under state statute.

Lastly, Scheithauer showed committee members a resolution passed last month by the Forest County Board of Supervisors, which voted unanimously to increase the wage of their clerk of courts for 2024, 2025 and 2026.

Scheithauer said she decided to come to committee after reading in The Star News that the county clerk, treasurer and register of deeds were given raises that will become effective after the positions are up for election in November. She then researched the state statute regarding compensation for constitutional officers before presenting her case to supervisors.

Human resources director Nicole Hager said she reached out to the Wisconsin Counties Association, and someone there told her that the county is not allowed to increase the compensation of a constitutional officer midway through his or her term.

Corporation counsel Courtney Graff concurred with the WCA’s advice, but also said “there’s an argument to be made for what she’s requesting” based on the idea that the board would be “correcting” an oversight it made when it did not bring the clerk of court’s salary up to the control point, as recommended by its consultants.

“It does look self-serving, but it is about the office, and getting that compensation to potentially where the county meant for it to be,” Graff said. “Other counties are doing it, and it’s definitely a discussion.”

Graff also noted that the county works with an outside attorney on labor issues, so she prefers if she is not the only one consulted about Scheithauer’s request.

Committee chairman Chuck Zenner said he personally has no problems with granting the raise, but he has some reservations because the issue is “murky.”

“It’s clear as mud,” he said. Supervisor Scott Mildbrand, however, said he understands why the statute prohibits granting wages midway through an elected official’s term, saying it’s not fair to others who may have run for office if they knew the compensation could be increased after the election.

“I just think we should leave this alone,” he said. Ultimately, the committee directed Graff and Hager to seek additional guidance from a labor attorney and bring back that information at a future meeting.

In a related matter, the committee authorized Scheithauer to hire Katie Phillips to serve as her deputy clerk of courts after there was a vacancy in the position. Phillips had previously served as Scheithauer’s deputy last year, and she is interested in returning to the position while she is still in school, Scheithauer said. The motion allows Phillips to work up to 35 hours per week.

In other business, members approved an overtime request from the register of deeds office, which is in the midst of fixing an issue with its real estate software that became apparent after it switched vendors. Registrar Jaymi Kohn said the previous vendor was paid to extract over 1 million image files linked to the records, but an unknown number of them are incorrect.

“It was bad enough where I had to shut off access to the system, and we were offline for the better part of a week,” she said.

Kohn said several images need to be resized and duplicates need to be eliminated, and the process can only be done manually, so she requested five hours of overtime per week for her deputy, for the next four to eight months. She said title companies, realtors and attorneys rely on the county’s software to provide accurate information. In addition to approving the overtime hours, the committee also authorized Kohn to hire a limited term employee and directed Graff to explore legal options against the software vendor that extracted the images.

The committee voted to increase the hours of environmental health specialist/sanitarian David Fenske from 35 to 40 hours. Health officer Michelle Cahoon said Fenske was hired in January after the county stopped contracting out the position, and since then, said it’s become clear that his job requires a full 40 hours per week to do health inspections and other duties. Fenske’s wages are covered by inspection and licensing fees, so the increased hours will not impact the tax levy, Cahoon said.

After meeting in closed session, the committee approved raises for two grounds and maintenance employees at the county airport, from $22.54 to $25 per hour for one employee and from $16.49 to $20.34 for another.

The committee voted to renew the county’s contract with DebtBook, a software company that assists the county with lease accounting. The cost of the contract increased by $500 to $10,500.