County commissioners approve pay raises for ‘21

As 2020 comes to the end, Lyon County Board members discussed and approved pay raises for the year 2021 at Tuesday’s meeting.
The board seemed to tread lightly on the topic of commissioner pay raises and voted 4-1 in favor of a two percent commissioner wage increase, while leaving the per diem salary unchanged.
Commissioner Steve Ritter was the only member in opposition to a pay increase.
"I don’t see why we’d want to resist doing that," Commissioner Charlie Sanow said."We hold employees to a certain amount of the budget. To tell ourselves and them year after year that we don’t need a raise, can’t we give that a consideration at some point?"
Commissioner Paul Graupmann pointed out that employees get a net performance increase, and Sanow said he would feel comfortable giving themselves an increase if it matched whatever the employee increase that year would be.
“I look at it this way,” Board Chair Gary Crowley said. “People are looking at being a commissioner and they look at pay. I think matching at two percent would be a fair way to do it.”
County commissioners in all counties receive compensation for services to their counties. The pay raise will be effective Jan. 1, 2020.
The current board salary is $20,200 per year with a per diem of $250 per month.

In other news, the board:
• Approved property tax abatements for parcels under owners Ben and Jennifer Hexum, Drew Hebig, Steven and Angela Lovre, Harold Deal, and Harold and Doris Drackley.
• Authorized the Dec. 31 payment for claims approved by the applicable department head. The claims must be submitted and approved in time to be processed before Dec. 31.
• Approved an expenditure total as of Dec. 8, 2020 for the year 2020 of $110,205.07.
• Approved tobacco license renewals for Valley Discount Liquor and Dollar General of Minneota.
• Approved the liquor license renewal for Valley Discount Liquor.
• Approved a quote of $163,644 from Lockwood Motors to purchase a replacement extended cab sign truck and other items associated with the vehicle.
• Approved the resurfacing of Garvin Park parking lots for a total of $16,750, with half of the funding to come from the park’s budget and the other half to come from a different budget such as Wind Tax.
• Approved the 2021 county fee schedule.
• Approved the regularly scheduled board meeting dates to be the first and third Tuesday of each month.
• Adopted the non-union pay ranges for 2021.
• Approved the proposed net levy of $15,246,415 for 2021.