
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, December 13, 1994                   TAG: 9412130095
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG                                 LENGTH: Medium

SUPERVISORS VOTE $370 RAISES

The Montgomery County Board of Supervisors gave each of its 140 employees $370-a-year raises Monday. That is more than the workers asked for at the bottom of the pay scale but less for mid- and top-level employees.

The move will cost $52,000 annually, or $26,000 for the remaining six months of the current budget. The money will come from savings realized with the recent departures of higher-paid workers.

The board also approved a $97,250 incentive package for the Wolverine Gasket Co. It will help the manufacturer buy the land and make road preparations for a $12 million expansion in the Blacksburg industrial park. Further details of incentives from the state and Blacksburg are to be announced today.

The county pay raise means workers at the bottom of the scale - those with the least experience and responsibility - will get a 3.6 percent pay increase. Those making $30,000 a year and up will see increases of 1.2 percent or less in their paychecks.

The workers asked for a 2 percent across-the-board raise last month. A diminished board - three of seven members were absent Monday - couldn't agree on that. Supervisor Jim Moore, instead, proposed the flat $370 raise, which passed 4-0. The board also directed the staff to study other ways to raise the lowest pay rates.

"I feel like it's addressing the lower end of the scale, the rest I don't know," said Steve Phillips, one of three employees who spoke for their colleagues last month. Cindy Martin, another worker spokeswoman, called it a "goodwill gesture" from the supervisors.

But it left county school officials dissatisfied: first, because the School Board cut a 3 percent raise for teachers and other school workers back to 2.5 percent at the supervisors' request last spring; and second, because the supervisors didn't apply the new increase to everyone, just the 140 people who ultimately answer to the Board of Supervisors. There are more than 600 teachers and nearly 200 other county employees not covered by the raise.

School Board member Barry Worth made a pitch for increasing teachers' and others' salaries and proposed a joint meeting between the boards to discuss ideas.

"Our teachers' salaries are in decline and they need our help," Worth said. "We've preached for years about teachers' salaries."

School Superintendent Herman Bartlett asked the board to clarify one point brought up by Supervisor Joe Gorman: that any part of county government not directly under the board's control would be able to give its employees a raise if it could do so without asking for more money. Those entities include the schools, social services and libraries.

"If it's the School Board, for instance, it's the School Board's decision," Chairman Larry Linkous agreed.

by CNB