Six Hamilton County Commission members have signed a document saying they want the Legislature to change the law that ties their pay to that of the county mayor.
If approved by the Legislature, the commissioners would then be able to set their own pay.
Signing the letter were David Sharpe, Warren Mackey, Tim Boyd, Katherlyn Geter, Chester Bankston and Randy Fairbanks.
Not signing were Chairman Chip Baker, Greg Martin and Sabrena Smedley.
Commissioner Fairbanks said, "The six years I have been on the Commission, we have given our county employees a raise in five of those years. Our employees are a valuable asset to Hamilton County and deserved all of those raises. The problem I have is every time we give our employees a raise, the county commissioners also get a raise, because of a resolution that was passed several years ago. That is a backdoor way of giving ourselves a raise. If our pay is increased, we ought to have to bring it up in an open meeting and vote on it like we do every other resolution we pass. Hamilton County is the only county out of 95 counties in Tennessee that is set up this way. How can 94 counties think this is the wrong way to calculate commissioner’s pay? That is the reason I think we should do as all the other counties and vote, in an open meeting, if our pay is to be raised."
County Attorney Rheubin Taylor forwarded the document on to Patsy Hazlewood, who heads the county legislative delegation.
Six signatures were needed in order to move it on to the legislature and will be needed to ratify it if the change is passed by the legislature.
Commissioners currently make about $24,500 per year, with the chairman getting $5,000 more and the vice chairman receiving $2,500 more.
Each time the county mayor gets a raise, the pay of the County Commission goes up by the same percent.
Also, pay of the mayor of Chattanooga and the nine City Council members are tied to that of the county mayor.
No other Tennessee county has a similar pay setup.
A similar letter sought by then-Commissioner Greg Beck and with eight signatures in all went to the legislature in 2015. However, legislators refused to act, pointing out that the commissioners had not voted openly on the issue before making the request.
There was no vote on the current pay effort at Wednesday's County Commission meeting. Attorney Taylor said the process had been to forward the letter to the legislators.
The letter says:
An Act Amending the Compensation Received by Hamilton County Commissioners
Amend Tennessee Code Annotated Section 5-5-107 by deleting in its entirety subsection (b)(2) which presently is applicable only to Hamilton County. Said subsection reads,
"Upon adoption of a resolution by a two-thirds vote of its membership, the county legislative body of any county having a population of not less than 285,000 or more than 286,000 according to the 1990 federal census or any subsequent federal census shall fix the salary of the members of the county legislative body by June 30, 1999 to become effective July 1, 1999. On July 1, 2000, and each July 1 thereafter, the compensation for members of the county legislative body shall be adjusted to reflect the same percentage increase the county executive of such county is to receive."
By deleting said subsection, Hamilton County would be covered by the same general Provisions that affect all other counties in Tennessee.
We the undersigned members of the Board of Commissioners for Hamilton County, Tennessee, do hereby evidence our approval of the heretofore attached proposed legislation by fixing our signatures herein below, and commit to adopt said legislation when presented to the County Commission upon its passage by the Tennessee General Assembly.
This 2nd day of February, 2021.