The Mississippi County Finance Committee held its monthly meeting Monday and a variety of issues were discussed.
Justice Michael White, chairman of the Finance Committee, opened the meeting by informing the committee that the county budget for 2024 is already at a $2.6 million deficit before discussions were held Monday.
The county general, as of Nov. 17, included $13,127,822 in requested expenditures and $11,707,028.95 of anticipated revenues at 100-percent. White stated the County can only legally budget 90-percent of anticipated revenues, which would be $10,504,369.86.
White added the Quorum Court plans to give a five-percent raise (10-percent for the Sheriffs Office) and include the longevity plan for employees, which has increased the county payroll by $752,000 for the ’24 budget.
The Finance Committee approved to send an appropriation ordinance to the full court which would give an end of the year bonus to employees— full time employees that have been at the courthouse for a year-plus will receive a $1,000 bonus and $500 for part time employees or full time employees under six-months.
Circuit Clerk Leslie Mason came to the meeting to ask for a raise for her office totaling $16,746.80, which she planned to pay for out of her recorder fund.
Judge Tonya Alexander, who was asked to speak on behalf of Mason, to inform the Finance Committee how professional the Mississippi County Circuit Clerk’s office is.
White asked if the County Clerk and Circuit Clerk’s office in Mississippi County was any different than counties in the rest of the second Judicial District.
Alexander answered, “With different levels of efficiency… The job itself is the same, but the level of professionalism I see from this clerks office differs from the levels that I have seen from others.”
Mason informed the committee of the amount of suits the circuit clerks office handles in both the Blytheville and Osceola Courthouse.
In the Civil report from Jan. 1 - Nov. 20, 2023 the pending end for Blytheville is 783 and 207 in Osceola. In Criminal for Blytheville is 855 and Osceola is 939. Domestic Relations in Blytheville is 806 and 467 in Osceola. With 215 Juvenile reports in Blytheville and 109 in Osceola.
Mason exclaimed that she has never asked for raises in her office, but she feels it is time to ask for the raise.
White added in the past the court has done raises out of other funds but eventually another request came from the fund and the quorum court had to get the funds out of county general to pay for the request.
Fireworks exploded, however, after Mason finished her presentation as County Clerk Janice Currie also was on the agenda asking for raises in her office.
“So one of my problems in general is Leslie is trying to take care of her people and I respect that. Janice is trying to take care of her people and I respect that. They got their own offices and their own personnel. (The Quorum Court) have 200 that we have to take care of,” explained White.
After explaining very offices salaries, White continued, “Its hard for me to justify cherry picking in Leslie’s office or Janice’s office or anybody else’s office and adding to the expenditure budget if we’re not going to take care of everybody. We got 30-employees out there that make less than any of these office personnel.”
Mason responded, “I fell like, and I’m sorry if this is the wrong word to say, but I feel like we are being penalized where others are not because they’re allowed to get rid of an employee, or a slot. And I’m proud for them. I’m happy for them. I don’t have any animosity about that. But my whole thing is okay I’m going to ask for my people because they’re dedicated, they’re loyal, they’re hardworking and I’ve never asked for one before, because I’ve tried to do what y’all, or some of y’all, have asked me to do. Which was do not ask for individual raises. Now it’s come to the point where I’ve realized that I should have already been asking for the individual raises.”
Currie stated she is appreciative of the raises, longevity plan and the bonuses but she’d like to help her office employees get more.
White added the 30 people in other offices would like the raise as well.
Mason stated, “Their elected official needs to stand up for them.”
Currie reiterated her wanting to help her office and later in the meeting stated she wished someone would speak up for the people in other departments.
Justice Neil Burge stated, “I want to say something. I am totally frustrated over this. This all started because someone took the steps of starting the process, eliminating the position and putting that money to their people. All of sudden some people get all excited because they’re deputy clerk is going to make more then their deputy clerks are.The people in the assessors office have been underpaid $2-3,000 for years and y’all have never said one word about it.
Currie responded, “When you’ll gave them a raise we never said a word, because they deserved it.”
She added, “There wasn’t a thing we could’ve said or done to change (former Assessor) Harley’s (Bradley) people. That you would have listened to.”
White added the QC is doing “all that we can do” and that the elected officials would want the QC to “break the county”.
Currie responded, “I’m not trying to break the county. I just think if you want to keep your people. Um, I just feel like it’s a slap to the face.”
White then asked if anyone would make a motion on giving the raises in both the county clerk and circuit clerks office and after two calls for a motion the issue failed.
White stated, “Until we can do it for everybody, including the road department and the landfill. I can’t support it myself.”