COUNTY'S MOVE TO FIRST CLASS BEING FELT

JACKSON -- Cape Girardeau County won't move from second to first class until 1997, but county commissioners already feel the growing pains.

Counties with an assessed valuation of $450 million or more for five consecutive years become first class on the sixth year.

How the impending change will affect things was evident at the county salary commission meeting last week. The salary commission consists of all the elected officials but the coroner, surveyor and public administrator, so most were present.

They must meet every two years by statute.

This time they were deciding how to handle raises. At its 1993 meeting, the salary commission voted in 10 percent raises for officials who took office in 1995. At this meeting, they voted in a 10 percent raise for those who take office in 1997.

By delaying the raises, they don't break state statute by voting in pay increases for people currently in office.

Ten percent may sound like a lot, but the salary commission forgot to meet in 1989 and 1991, so nobody got a raise. Before that, the state legislature set salaries for elected county officials.

Also on Thursday, they voted to tie in officials' raises to the cost-of-living adjustments given other county employees -- if the employees get 3.5 percent more, so do the officials. But the officials can't take them until the next election, if they are re-elected.

Sound a little confusing? It gets worse: Factoring in rules about first-class counties creates other issues.

Presiding Commissioner Gerald Jones said the jury is still out on how to interpret a new state law that says the presiding commissioner shall make more money than the associate commissioners. Right now, all of them make $28,000 a year.

Jones can't vote himself a pay raise while in office, and his term won't end until 1999. In the meantime, the associate commissioners will have another election and winners will take office in 1997.

Under a first-class county rule, associate commissioners are elected for four years instead of two, just like the presiding commissioner.

The presiding commissioner can get a raise effective 1999, but by then, the associates will be in the middle of their terms, so they can't get a raise.

Jones said the system ends up being unfair, and he isn't sure how all this will work out. Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle is researching everything, and the county might end up consulting someone with the Missouri attorney general's office.

Another issue for Swingle to research is a change in the coroner's office.

Right now, John Carpenter is Cape Girardeau County coroner and makes $8,000 a year in that position. If there's a need for an autopsy, he takes the body to a medical examiner, who may charge between $1,500 and $5,000 for the autopsy, mileage, testifying in court and other expenses.

The law says first-class counties must appoint a medical examiner. Since medical examiners are doctors, they make more than $8,000 a year -- sometimes as much as $100,000 to $200,000 a year.

Carpenter is up for re-election in November 1996, and said he plans to run. That raises some questions, Swingle said.

"If we become a first-class county on Jan. 1, 1997, and that's when any elected coroner takes office, should you even have the position on the ballot?" he said. "But the coroner system has worked very well for our county."

If it is decided that the coroner's position shouldn't be on the November 1996 ballot, Swingle said the county has two options.

The first is to try and change the legislation; the second is to hire a medical examiner on retainer and make Carpenter or someone else the deputy medical examiner and pay the current salary.

Carpenter said he thinks the matter is clear. He pointed to Missouri Revised Statute 48.050, which reads: "Any elected county official whose office may be abolished or consolidated with another office as a result of the change of the county from one class to another shall continue to hold the office to which he was elected for the term for which he was elected."

Swingle's interpretation remains to be seen -- he's looking for precedents.

As for the county commission, Thursday's meeting was just the start of growing pains as Cape County pulls into its first-class slot.

"There's no way around it," Jones said. "We just have to do it, and it's going to be a major thing getting everything worked out. Every officeholder will have to work through these things."