Friday, May 17, 2024
Elected and appointed Hood County officials will soon see a 3% increase in their salaries, as voted on by the Hood County Commissioners Court on Tuesday, Aug. 8.
However, the salary increase will not affect every elected official, as the commissioners approved to exclude themselves from the motion — a decision that was largely led by Precinct 2 Commissioner Nannette Samuelson.
At first, Precinct 1 Commissioner Kevin Andrews said he was concerned about the elected officials in Hood County who are still “working age” and still “require a salary.”
Hood County Judge Ron Massingill told Andrews that the Local Government Code 153.013 statute allows that any elected official can “turn back any and all of (their) salary back to the county treasurer.”
Samuelson also chimed in that the statute allows the commissioners to set different rates for each individual office.
As Wilson still had questions regarding approving the raise for every elected official, Hood County Auditor Becky Kidd assured him that if some individuals didn’t want their salary increase, they would need to let the commissioners know so that the budget could be adjusted.
"With all of the elected and appointed, the total increase with benefits was less than $100,000,” Kidd said. “And to take that away from all of them … I don't know what they've come to you and said, but I know what they've come to me and said: They like their increase, they want to get their employees as much as they can, but they don't want to start going backwards, because all of the elected for three years did not get a raise. Let the other elected officials have their raise and let them decide what to do with it.”
Samuelson chimed in that she believed they should allow individuals to choose whether they would want a salary increase or not.
“You know, for the folks that had come to us that said, ‘I'm willing to give my raise up so that folks can get a better raise,’ we should honor their request,” she said.
Massingill said that the commissioners court does a “lot of good things for this community,” but many people think that it’s not a function of the government.
“There’s a lot of 501(c)(3) organizations that save a lot of families,” he said. “So, you want to do something really good to help this community? Go ahead and take your 3% and give it all back and more to the community — how about that? If you really want to help someone and make a difference, give it to your church that helps out people that has a food program. How about doing that so that you can really do something that makes a difference and make you feel good? You want to really help citizens out? Take your increase and give it back to the citizens of Hood County.”
“I don't want to take the money from the taxpayers, so we can give it to the charity. I want to give to the charity with my own money. I don't want to tax people so that I can give money to charity,” Samuelson said, which elicited applause from community members.
She then made a motion to set the salaries with a 3% raise for all elected and appointed officials excluding the Hood County Commissioners Court.
The motion passed 4:1, with Precinct 4 Commissioner Dave Eagle replying that since a proposed budget had not yet been presented, he wasn’t “going to vote on something that’s not ready.”
