MANSFIELD — Richland County commissioners and the Common Pleas Court general division judges reached agreements Thursday to help resolve issues that cropped up four months ago during annual budget discussions.
And the steps were taken without adding funds to the court’s 2024 budget — at least as of now — and came after a wage study of the court’s positions.
First, commissioners approved a pay grade elevation for the court’s top administrator position, currently held by Tammy Wurthmann.
The slot will be elevated to an 18 level, with a minimum annual wage of $73,736 ($35.45 an hour), a midrange of $88,504 ($42.55 an hour) and a maximum of $103,230 ($49.63 per hour), according to Commissioner Tony Vero.
Vero said it’s two paygrades higher than the Probate Court administrator and three higher than Domestic Relations Court.
“It would be one of our highest court administrators, but we don’t have Juvenile Court yet. I would imagine Juvenile Court will probably come in around that 18 range as well, if and when they do. It’s a larger court with a detention facility, so it’s around that range, but a little higher, which makes sense,” he said.
“The court administrator in the general division is a larger division with a much higher caseload, criminal and civil. So 18 is about right. I don’t think it’s anything unreasonable,” Vero said.
The unanimous vote by commissioners came after an executive session with judges Brent Robinson and Phil Naumoff, who arranged for the wage scale study.
“Honestly, we did the study trying to assess where it should be, as far as the pay scale. In retrospect, seeing what our court administrator does, she handles two courts,” Naumoff said.
“There is a heavy docket. We felt that it should be a little bit more than either probate or domestic (courts). They are smaller.
“Juvenile (court) as Commissioner Vero indicated, has not completed that study. But again, they also have, we believe, three and a half (or) maybe four administrators there.
“So we think that the amount of work that our court administrator does merit that pay scale,” Naumoff said.
(Below is a PDF regarding a request from Richland County Common Pleas General Division judges made Dec. 29.)
The next two steps on Thursday didn’t require official approval from commissioners since the trio said they believed the judges could accomplish them under the budget approved in December.
The first will allow 12 court employees to be paid during their lunch hours, which will allow them to paid for 40 hours per week, instead of 36.
The two judges asked for the move in a letter to commissioners on Dec. 29 after pay increases of 4 percent were granted to court employees, about 3 percent less than judges had requested.
“This, of course, would be consistent with how the other Common Pleas Court Divisions in Richland County are, and have been, paying their court staff members,” the judges wrote.
Judges said their employees had been working 41 hours per week, but only being paid for 40.
“In doing the wage study, we realized it’s difficult to compare one person’s wage with another person’s wage if they are being paid a different number of hours,” Robinson said.
“So if I’m being paid $30 an hour, but I’m only being paid for 36 hours, and someone else is doing a similar job, they’re getting that same salary, but they’re getting paid for 40 hours,” he said.
“That’s a 10% difference in salary right there. We were the only court in Richland County that was not paying lunches. So our staff was looking at doing similar work, but not being paid a similar amount of hours,” the judge said.
The judges said the disparity with other courts made it difficult to retain workers who could easily change to a different court and make more money for the same type of work.
“So for us to maintain employees and the key people we need to be competitive with the way that other courts are paying their staff … that’s the reason for the request,” he said.
Judges also said they would be increasing the pay of magistrate Mackenzie Mayer by $3,000 per year to $80,890. Robinson said the hike would make her salary more consistent with other magistrates in the county.
“She has more experience. I believe she does a job that is more critical with regard to multi-million dollar civil lawsuits and very, very serious criminal cases. And I just think that it would be right if we would pay her on a consistent basis with other magistrates who are less experienced,” Robinson said.
Vero said commissioners would monitor court expenses and could take action later in the year to increase funding, if needed.
“We’re going to wait to see how the year shakes out,” he said. “Should they need additional appropriations, (judges) will send a letter and we will review at that time. But we think there’s sufficient money in the budget, at this time, to pay for what they want to do,” he said.
Commissioners proclaim April as Child Abuse Prevention Month
Commissioners issued the annual proclamation during a meeting with Richland County Children Services Executive Director Nikki Harless.
“I just want the community to know, the best way to help us prevent child abuse and neglect is to report it to the agency,” she said.
“We’re available 24/7 to take the information that people have and if they don’t feel comfortable leaving their name, they can report anonymously. We had 84 people last year report their concerns anonymously, so that’s not a problem,” she said.
Harless said the agency took 2,972 reports from the public in 2023 and conducted 1,150 investigations.
She said the agency gained custody of 75 children last year.
“We have a total of 133 children right now in foster and residential care,” Harless said. “We also have about 180 more children that are living with kinship caregivers, so we really appreciate our kinship families that step up for their relatives and take care of those children.”
She said parental drug abuse in 2023 was the top reason the agency gained custody of children.
“We’re still seeing parents using drugs and when we go out, the parents are (testing) positive. We’re testing the children, too. Unfortunately we had 137 out of 279 children test positive for drugs in 2023.
“That’s a 51% positivity rate, unfortunately. And 35 of those children were for ages four days old up to four and a half years old,” Harless said.