Cape Girardeau County follows statewide trend of salary increases that far exceed Consumer Price Index

Through the good times and the bad, from the economic boom of the late 1990s to the financial collapse of the Great Recession, Cape Girardeau County elected officials could count on one thing: a raise.

County officeholders effectively have given themselves cost-of-living increases each of the past 14 years, pushing their average annual salaries to more than $69,000 in 2010, according to an analysis by the Southeast Missourian. Over the period, elected officials salaries' have increased 68.3 percent, nearly double that of the rate of inflation measured by the Consumer Price Index.

Cape Girardeau County in 2010 ranked third among Missouri's 11 first-class counties without a charter government, despite ranking toward the bottom of the list in population, according to information obtained through an extensive open-records request campaign over the past several months.

2010 average county executive salaries

But Cape Girardeau County is not alone in issuing raises well above the rate of inflation, the analysis found. Seven of the 11 counties in the analysis posted 60 percent or better cumulative salary increases between 1997 and 2010, with Franklin County, Mo., in the shadow of St. Louis, recording a 93.5 percent total increase in pay raises for elected officers over the period. In Boone County, home of the University of Missouri, the average salary for the county's elected officers tops $82,000 a year, approaching the salary of Missouri Lt. Gov. Kinder, who was paid $86,484 in 2010.

While some first-class, nonchartered counties have been forced to trim salaries during recessionary times, they appear to be the exception to the rule.

Cape Girardeau County officials, including the man who presided over the raise-setting salary commission since 1996 when Cape Girardeau County moved to first-class status, defend the increases, saying commissioners, the auditor, clerk and the county's other elected officers are hard-working professionals who more than earn their keep. They note that county employees, numbering 195 in 2010, received the same or better percentage of pay increases as elected officials, as outlined under the rules that guide the county's salary commission. Gerald Jones, longtime presiding commissioner of Cape Girardeau County, said the raises were in order and necessary, that the county was in good financial shape when they were voted on and that they are recognition that the county's employees are its No. 1 assets.

Population change 1997 to 2010

Still, a review of the salary documents obtained from the 11 counties in the analysis shows Cape Girardeau County employee compensation, at an average of $25,392.96 a year, ranks at the lower end of the first-class nonchartered counties. A review of the salary commission's meeting minutes over the past 14 years shows the panel, made up of all county elected officials except the circuit clerk, called for a study of employee wages in 2007. The commission noted that pay was lower than the average for first-class counties. The minutes show no salary evaluation for county officeholders.

The difference is in the pay and the system. An outgoing parks employees with 20 years of experience, for instance, can be replaced with a less experienced employee at a lower wage. When an officeholder is voted out, his or her replacement, with less experience, begins the term making more money than the preceding officer, as evidenced by data from the past decade and a half -- showing constant upward movement.

First-class pay

2010 average prosecuting attorney salary

The people who set the salaries and pay raises for Cape Girardeau County's elected officials are its elected officials.

The salary commission by law must meet once every two years but has met more frequently. The circuit clerk, whose salary is determined and financed through the state, serves as temporary commission chairman until a replacement is elected to preside over the session.

While the county's prosecuting attorney and the sheriff are voting members, their salaries are set under different state statutes.

2010 average public administrator salary

The Missouri Citizens' Commission on Compensation for Elected Officials sets the compensation of state officials, legislators and judges. Law mandates counties pay their prosecuting attorneys compensation equal to that of an associate circuit court judge, now at $109,366. Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle currently draws a salary of $112,647.

Missouri sheriffs' salaries, as described in Missouri Revised Statutes 57.317, are computed based on the assessed valuation of a county.

The mechanism that reformulated base salaries and the current system of raises grew out of a special county salary commission meeting in 1996, after Cape Girardeau County reached first-class status.

Under Missouri statute, a county hits first-class designation when it reaches an assessed valuation threshold. In 1996, the figure was $450 million; it is now $900 million. As of last year, Cape Girardeau County's value topped $1 billion.

2010 average county sheriff salary

First-class counties, through voter consent, may become charter counties, with county executive-model governments. Missouri's charter counties, including Jackson, St. Charles and St. Louis counties, divide legislative and executive authority between a larger county council and an elected county executive. Noncharter counties, like Cape Girardeau County, operate under a county commission model, in which commissioners have both legislative and executive power.

First-class status came with a one-time-only deal allowing Cape Girardeau County to adjust the salaries of elected officials. Hence the special meeting of the salary commission in 1996. Under the Missouri revised statute section 50.343.2, the commission could set salaries below a rate based on a value formula -- tied to assessed valuation -- at 100 percent of that rate, or above. The commission opted to raise salaries to the 100 percent level, something Swingle advised.

Percentage of total county payroll for county executive salaries

"If we don't do anything now, then the salaries we have now will be set in stone and we will always be a first class county with second class rates of pay," Swingle said to fellow members of the commission, according to the minutes of the meeting.

Weldon Macke, county auditor at the time, attested the county had the funds to cover the increase. The adjustment bumped up the base salaries of officeholders elected in 1997 and 1999. The presiding commissioner, auditor, recorder of deeds and collector would see their base salaries climb to $41,800, while associate commissioners, in accordance with statute, would earn $39,800, or $2,000 less than the presiding commissioner. The county clerk's salary would be adjusted to $43,450, the assessor's to $44,726. At the time, the prosecuting attorney would make $70,400 a year, and the sheriff would take home $51,788.

Macke at the special meeting said the increases were arrived at by taking the 1995 salaries of the assessor and treasurer, plus 10 percent, plus 7 percent, plus their increases according to state statute. That figure was adjusted to what the salary would be in 1997.

Everyone thought the formula fair, with the exception of then-county treasurer Bill Reynolds. The salary commission moved to set the treasurer's salary at $37,000, lowest on the list of elected officials. Reynolds made a motion to raise the treasurer's salary to $41,000, in what he said was the intent of the law to "adjust and equalize the salaries" of county officials. The motion died for lack of a second, and Swingle made a motion to amend the verbiage to take out "and equalize."

Reynolds spent years fighting for equalization, and finally the salaries of the treasurer and public administrator were brought up to the level of their fellow officeholders -- but it took an act of the legislature to do it.

The salary commission in 1995 attached a condition on raises, mandating that officeholders could not receive salary increases at a rate higher than that of county employees. While Swingle said there's no cap to salary increases, that the commission could set wages as high as it deems appropriate, the panel has consistently capped raises of elected officials at 3.5 percent.

The Missouri Constitution clearly states that the commission cannot have officeholders voting raises for themselves during their term. So raises always take effect during the intervening election. County officers, Swingle and others say, aren't voting on raises for themselves but for the office, and who fills that office is up to the will of the voters. But in Cape Girardeau County, elected officials have a way of staying in their positions for a long time. And, without fail, the salary commission has given elected officials a raise, oftentimes much higher than the rate of inflation.

Wage freeze

Between 1997 and 2009, the salary commission approved raises of 3.5 percent for officeholders, according to Auditor Pete Frazier, who began his first term in office in January. One county official described the votes over the period as "pro forma." In 2010, raises were set at 3 percent, and this year they are at 2.5 percent, Frazier said.

The 3.5 percent increase outpaced the Consumer Price Index in every year but one, particularly in 2002 when a recession drove inflation down to 1.6 percent, and in the Great Recession in 2009 when it was minus 0.4 percent.

Between 1997 and 2010, salaries for elected officials rose a total of 68.3 percent, nearly double that of the 35.9 percent cumulative CPI over the period. The average salary for Cape Girardeau County elected officials, not including the prosecuting attorney and sheriff, was $69,538, as of 2010, ranking it third among all of Missouri's first-class, nonchartered counties. Its population, meanwhile, at 75,674 residents, ranks second-lowest, as does its number of employees, at 195 full and part time, as of 2010. Payroll in 2010 topped $5,078,000, ranking Cape Girardeau at the bottom of the list. But the county ranks No. 1 in percentage of payroll taken up by elected officials' salaries, at a combined $888,000, representing 17.5 percent of total county pay.

If salaries for elected officials had risen at the CPI level over the time, the presiding commissioner, auditor, recorder and collector would have earned $56,765 in 2010.

A majority of Missouri's first-class, noncharter counties have posted similar increases over the period. Elected officials' salaries in Cass County rose nearly 87 percent, and Boone County salaries increased 79.7 percent.

Ed Robb, Boone County's new presiding commissioner, campaigned on lowering what he called "outrageous salaries," for elected officials. His predecessor made $84,015 in 2010. During an interview with the Southeast Missourian, Robb didn't discuss any plans to lower salaries.

Wages in recent years have been flat or falling for many workers. During the Great Recession that, by economists' accounts, ended in 2009, wages in the private sector shrank as employers were forced to cut jobs, freeze pay and benefits and diminish hours to survive the downturn.

"The deeper the recession, the lower the wage you're going to get in the next job and the lower the quality of your next job," Columbia University labor economist Till von Wachter said in a recent Wall Street Journal article.

Between 2007 and 2009, more than half the full-time workers who lost jobs that they had held for at least three years and then found new full-time work by early last year reported wage declines, according to the Labor Department. The same report found 36 percent reported the new job paid at least 20 percent less than the one they lost, The Wall Street Journal piece said.

Millions of others dependent on the CPI have seen nominal increases in income. The index affects the earnings of almost 80 million people as a result of statutory action: 47.8 million Social Security beneficiaries, about 4.1 million military and federal civil service retirees and survivors, and about 22.4 million food stamp recipients.

Holding the line

Three of the first-class, noncharter counties have kept salary increases for officeholders below CPI over the past 14 years, a couple considerably lower. Greene County, home of Springfield, Missouri's third-largest city, raised salaries by 12.1 percent over the period. Clay County boosted elected officials' pay by 18.6 percent, and Cole County's increase was 33.2 percent.

Cole County, which hosts the capital of Jefferson City, is slightly bigger in population than Cape Girardeau County, but salaries of its elected officials, at $49,819 last year, rank 11th on the list of first-class noncharter counties. Meanwhile, its payroll and workforce are twice as large as Cape Girardeau County's. Cole County's commissioners, unlike Cape Girardeau County, work part time. Presiding Commissioner Marc Ellinger said his county's salary commission has not voted to give elected offices a raise since 2007, although county employees are eligible for merit raises and adjustments based on seniority. All elected officers and county employees have received a $450 annual cost of living adjustment since 2007, Ellinger said.

In Buchanan County, elected officials have received raises totaling nearly 62 percent over the past 14 years, but salaries have remained flat over the past three, according to Commissioner Dan Hausman.

"In light of economic issues, we've not voted for it," he said.

It's a similar situation in Franklin County, with a suburban St. Louis population of more than 100,000. The county took a big hit when Chrysler left, and for the past four years the salary commission hasn't granted raises to elected officials or employees, according to County Clerk Debbie Door. The county's unionized highway department in its last contract, however, did receive a small raise, but there are no guarantees in the next agreement.

"We are fiscally conservative. Our employees are just thankful to have jobs instead of layoffs," Door said.

Missouri's judges, from the Supreme Court to associate circuit judges, haven't seen a pay raise since 2008. That is expected to change beginning in July 2012, when Supreme Court judges will see their pay increase by $10,557, down to associate circuit judges, who will get a $7,492 raise and, in accordance with the law, prosecuting attorneys.

You get what you pay for

Gerald Jones served as Cape Girardeau County's presiding commissioner for 16 years and was chairman of the salary commission for all of its biennial meetings from 1996 to 2009.

Despite some slower growth years, Jones said, the county was always in good financial standing and that it could afford the raises the salary commission approved. In December, just before leaving office, Jones said he was proud of county officials for their judicious use of taxpayer funds. He said they often have money left in their budgets at the end of the year.

"Our officeholders ... only spend what's necessary," he said in a Southeast Missourian article, noting in 2005 the unencumbered balance was $905,000 and increased to $1.597 million in 2010.

Jones said employees are the county's most valuable asset, and they should be rewarded for their hard work.

"It's not a tractor or a road grader; it's the people who operate them that are the most important things," he said. "You have to keep your employees happy, and giving them a 2.5 percent raise certainly is not anything out of line, in my opinion. If we were broke, that would have been out of line."

Jones, owner and operator of Jackson publication the Cash-Book Journal, said he feels the same way about his employees in the private sector. He said the company has issued raises every year, and employees receive a Christmas bonus equal to one week's pay.

"We have to tighten up our belts, maybe buy a couple less computers, but we still give people a raise," Jones said.

Swingle said it boils down to competition. If you want quality people, you've got to be willing to pay, he said.

"If Cape County is third-highest in salaries, then bravo," he said. "You have to look at quality. Roger Hudson is the best treasurer in the state. He's not underpaid."

Hudson also sees the justification for the raises.

"I earn my pay," he said. "I've earned more in my past lives."

Frazier, the auditor, said his salary is well below what someone would make in the private sector. He said many of his duties would be preformed by a CPA in the business world, commanding a much higher salary.

Commissioner Jay Purcell believes you do get what you pay for, but he says Cape Girardeau County taxpayers aren't getting their money's worth. Purcell has long opposed salary increases for elected officials. He has voted against raises for executives, arguing that Cape Girardeau County officeholders make too much money, particularly compared to much larger Missouri counties with greater responsibilities.

The average officeholder salary in Greene County -- nearly four times the population of Cape Girardeau County, with a workforce 3 1/2 times bigger -- was less than $4,000 more per year than elected officials in Cape Girardeau County.

"The numbers don't lie; we are out of line," Purcell said.

Purcell also points to what he believes is an extremely generous state pension fund system, a benefit free of charge to county employees and paid for by the county's taxpayers.

"Elected officials get between $900 and $1,000 a month in our pension plan put in by county taxpayers," he said. "I worked 15 years for my previous employer, and when I walked away I was vested at about $15,000. I worked 15 months as a commissioner and made the same as I made for my private employer. That's way out of whack."

Some taxpayers, particularly in tough economic times, have questioned the fiscal prudence of increasing public salaries, asking where it will end. That's a matter for the salary commission to decide. One thing is certain: If salaries continue to increase, on average, between 3.25 percent and 3.4 percent as they have since 1997, Cape Girardeau County elected officials' annual pay will exceed $100,000 within 11 years.

Editor Bob Miller and Brad Hollerbach contributed to this report.