By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
County Attorney Anne Bast Brown has received 13 pay raises totaling $41,000 since she was hired by the Levy County Commission in 2004, but 11 of those pay increases were given without Brown ever appearing before commissioners at a public meeting to make her request.
Brown and other senior management officials, known as department heads, are automatically given pay raises through an unwritten policy that gives them whatever raise is negotiated by Levy County Road Department, LIUNA Local 630, in collective bargaining talks.
For more than 25 years, the unwritten practice of giving the high paid county department heads the same percentage pay raises as LIUNA road department workers has been practiced by county commissioners without a written policy in place authorizing such raises.
Ronnie Burris, business agent for Laborers’ International Labor Union of North America Local 630, said he knew nothing about the county department heads receiving the same raises as he negotiated for LIUNA 630 until Spotlight called him to ask for comment.
Burris, mocking the practice, said the county commission might as well hire him as an employee since he is negotiating pay increases for their top administrators. Burris said the practice is legal but the county needs a written policy outlining how top administrators get their LIUNA 630 raises.
“If they’re going to do that they should have a policy. The problem is the public doesn’t understand and doesn’t know and they should have a right to come in and see something in writing and not just have the county saying, oh, this is just something we do. It should be a policy,” Burris said. “It’s just typical Levy County.”
The practice of giving employees like Brown and County Coordinator Wilbur Dean the same percentage raises as LIUNA workers has gone undetected by members of the public for a quarter of a century. The practice is legal but it’s under the radar for the people who pay the bills – Levy County taxpayers.
“It’s the best kept dirty little secret,” said Linda Cooper, founder of Spotlight.
Grader operators and dump truck drivers at the road department get the same raises as their high paid bosses in the upper tier of management, with one difference. The department heads are making big wages. Rank and file road department workers don’t make big salaries. The LIUNA pay raises widen the wealth gap between rank and file employees and their bosses at the top of the chain of command.
The practice came to light on Dec. 8 when Brown appeared before the county commission to ask for a 3 percent raise above her existing base salary. Commissioners voted 4-1 to give her the raise which increased her base salary from $124,779 to $128,523 and expanded her benefits package to $182,523. She confirmed in her agenda item that she received most of her raises through LIUNA 630 collective bargaining rather than appearing before the board in public meetings.
Brown, Dean and other county department heads aren’t represented by the LIUNA 630 union, they aren’t protected by the union and they don’t pay union dues but they receive the same raises. Dean is the lead negotiator when county officials meet with LIUNA leaders to discuss wages and benefits for their next contract.
Commissioners showered Brown with praise for her work as their legal advisor on Dec. 8, but Commissioner Mike Joyner, the only board member to vote against the raise, said he couldn’t in good conscience vote to raise Brown’s pay in a year when many county residents are struggling in the COVID-19 crisis.
“What we’re going through now, I just don’t think we’re treating the public right to raise it right now,” Joyner said. “If anyone deserves one (a raise) she does, but now the time is not proper.”
Cooper will appear before commissioners at their Dec. 22 meeting to urge the board to rescind the raise, arguing Brown violated procedures used by the board to approve its budget by asking for the raise two months after the budget was finalized, and that Brown wasn’t honest about the impact of her raise when she said it was for less than $4,000. Cooper pointed out that the raise also requires the county to provide additional funds for her state retirement, which increases the financial impact on county taxpayers.
With the bigger pay package, commissioners must contribute $35,000 annually to Brown’s state retirement account, an amount higher than the annual base salaries earned by many rank and file employees at the road department. It isn’t uncommon in county government for employees in lower-ranking positions to make a base salary of less than $35,000, according to Jimmy Willis, union steward for Local 630 at the road department.
Willis said the practice of giving department heads the same percentage raises as LIUNA union workers at the road department was being practiced when he came to work for the county 25 years ago.
Willis said he sees nothing wrong with the practice as long as department heads don’t receive additional pay increases that the LIUNA workers don’t get. He was unaware that Brown was granted an additional 3 percent increase to her base pay on Dec. 8. He said he would consult with Burris on that issue.
The current LIUNA contract gave its workers and bargaining unit employees a base pay increase of $1,497.60 plus an additional $1,750.60 to purchase health insurance effective Oct. 1, 2019. They didn’t actually receive the money until early in 2020 due to lengthy contract talks. Top management officials, including Brown and Dean and all other department heads, also got the same raise.
The same contract gave LIUNA workers and bargaining unit employees in year two of the contract an increase of $500 in their pay effective on Oct. 1, 2020, which again, was also given to Brown and the other department heads in county government.
For year three, the LIUNA workers will get a lump sum pay raise of $1,000 effective Oct. 1, 2021. The raise will also go to Brown and the other department heads.
The chart shows the 13 pay raises County Attorney Anne Bast Brown received since being hired on March 30, 2004. The final 3 percent raise, which was worth $1.80 an hour, will be retroactive to Oct. 1, 2020, at Brown’s request. Eleven of the 13 pay raises were given to Brown after the LIUNA Local 630 public employees union-negotiated collective bargaining agreements. She isn’t a member of the union and isn’t represented by Chapter 630 but received the pay raises just the same.
Connect with your Commissioner:
District1@levycounty.org – John Meeks
District2@levycounty.org – Rock Meeks
District3@levycounty.org – Mike Joyner, Vice-Chairman
District4@levycounty.org – Lilly Rooks
District5@levycounty.org – Matt Brooks, Chairman
Telephone: (352) 486-5218
Fax: (352) 486-5167
Email: LevyBOCC@LevyCounty.org
Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 310
Bronson, FL 32621
Board of County Commission Regular Meeting December 8, 2020; Posted December 17, 2020
