OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – The Oklahoma County Budget Board approved a 14 percent annual pay raise for elected officials during a special meeting on Wednesday.
The Oklahoma County Budget Board voted 5-2, with one member abstaining, to give themselves a $17,375 pay raise.
The Budget Board is composed of the county’s elected officials, Court Clerk Rick Warren, County Assessor Larry Stein, County Clerk David B. Hooten, Sheriff P.D. Taylor, Treasurer Forrest “Butch” Freeman and the three county commissioners, Kevin Calvey, Carrie Blumert and Brian Maughan.
Wednesday's move raises their annual salary from $105,262.50 to $122,337,50 , effective Jan. 1, 2021.
“Asking for that big of a raise on a bad year is just terrible optics,” Sean Cummings, an activist, said during public comment.
“This is neither the time or the place. Right now, unemployment benefits are ending for people in Oklahoma,” Mark Faulk, an activist, said.
The last minute meeting was called on Monday by County Treasurer Butch Freeman and County Clerk David Hooten. Officials said that was because they needed time to run the potential raise by the District Attorney's office.
“To try to do this right before the holiday, I just totally disagree with," Maughan said during the meeting.
“Whatever we make, that’s the most we can pay anybody. And so, it is beginning to impact us,” Freeman said.
Not only that, but Freeman argues they haven't received a raise in 12 years. He pointed to state statute, Title 19, which other counties follow, where a slight salary bump is enacted each year.
“This is what we should be using every year. If you’re looking at the price of a shot of whiskey, Irish whiskey, at a local pub, it’s gone up about 20 percent in the last 14 years," Larry Stein, County Assessor, said. "I’m certain that those restauranteurs don’t sit there and go, 'Gosh, the prices went up but I don’t think I want to raise my prices.'”
In comparison to the elected officials' salaries in Oklahoma County, Stein said elected officials in Tulsa County currently make about $111,000.
“This is what we’re supposed to do and we follow every other single law in this building,” he said, referencing Title 19.
“It simply says that we can, it doesn’t say that we shall, and I think that they could have taken a smaller percentage instead of a 14 percent single one time increase jump," Maughan said when KFOR asked him about Title 19.
Both Commissioners Brian Maughan and Kevin Calvey, District 3, voted no. Taylor abstained, as he's leaving office in January.
“I’ll donate the entire bit of that raise to charity here locally,” said Calvey. "I’ve never voted for a pay raise for myself and never will.”
“This is insinuation about we’re doing it for the employee is just garbage. I mean there are so few employees that are going to be impacted by this. It’s just the top, top, staff members which are underneath the elected officials by a dollar,” Maughan said.
