Top Wagoner County officials to get big raise

WAGONER, Okla. (AP) -- Eight top Wagoner County officials will become some of the highest paid county officials in northeast Oklahoma on Thursday when a $20,000 raise goes into effect.

The officials -- three county commissioners, the sheriff, the county clerk, the court clerk, the treasurer and the assessor -- will make $54,000 annually with the nearly 60 percent pay increase.

Only Tulsa County pays its officials more than Wagoner. The raise is the maximum allowed by state law.

Legislators passed a measure two years ago that allowed counties to increase administrative pay by up to $20,000. Tulsa County tried to raise salaries by the maximum amount two years ago, but public outcry and a lawsuit eventually reversed the vote.

Tulsa County's officials voted on the raise a week before the law took effect, the judge ruled. The officials have not tried again.

Cherokee County officials passed a similar raise for themselves this month, bringing their county officials' salaries to $52,000.

Wagoner County's officials voted themselves a $12,000 raise two years ago, but it was taken away from four of the eight officers.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that officials weren't eligible for the raise if they were elected before the law was put into place.

"I'd been here 16 years at that time," said County Clerk Jerry Fields. "We had a new commissioner come in making $12,000 more than I was."

That's part of the reason Wagoner County's Excise Board voted such a big raise for the officers this year.

"We hesitantly approved it," Excise Board Chairman Steve Butler said. "We weren't wild about giving that big a raise for the officers, but some officers were underpaid for two years. We felt this was, in some way, making it up to them."

The officials who didn't get the raise two years ago will make $20,000 more this year. The other four will get $8,000 more.

Wagoner County officials hadn't been given a raise in five or six years, Butler said.

Although he was skeptical about the large amount of money at first, Wagoner County can afford the salaries, Butler said.

The money will come out of Wagoner County's general fund, which is comprised of a percentage of property taxes and fees collected by the county offices. The general fund increased by $350,000 this year, Butler said. The county used less than half of that to fund raises.

In fact, there was enough to give all county employees a $1,200 raise, Butler said. County employees have seen similar raises for the last five or six years.

Officials attribute much of Wagoner County's prosperity to Tulsa.

"Tulsa is spreading this way," said Fields, the county clerk.

"The tax base is going up. We get a 10 mill (portion of the property taxes) and that keeps going up."

Even though Wagoner County is one of the most heavily taxed counties in the state, property taxes don't fluctuate the way sales taxes do, Butler said.

"Property tax really can't go down. If the economy turns down, the property tax is still due," Butler said. "It's not like a sales tax. Property tax is always going to be there."

Tulsa County, with 548,000 people, pays its county officials close to $70,000.

In comparison, Wagoner County, with 56,000 people, will go to the $54,000 salaries; Cherokee County has just over 39,500 people and pays $52,000, and Muskogee County, with 70,000 people, pays its officials $49,000.