Henderson, Huckaby push changes to elected officials’ pay
Knox County Mayor Betsy Henderson is backing Knox County Commissioner Brandon Huckaby’s proposed ordinance to rescind a pay increase for Commissioners and school board members.
“I have said all along that politicians should not give themselves pay raises,” Henderson said. “After the Commission passed a 6% pay increase for themselves in June, I joined my fellow school board members in unanimously voting to ask the Commission to repeal that raise.
“As mayor, I have worked alongside my colleagues to come up with a creative solution to end self-dealing pay raises by politicians in Knox County,” she said. “I am proposing an ordinance that would tie Commissioners’ and school board members’ pay adjustments to the same state-certified formula used for other elected officials.
“This will create a clear standard that holds politicians accountable while removing conflicts of interests and self-dealing,” she added. “I want to thank Commissioner Brandon Huckaby for his leadership on this, and I ask the rest of the Commission to join him in supporting it.”
Huckaby’s proposed ordinance, if passed, would allow Commissioners and school board members’ salaries to be determined by the state.
Expressly, it would request that any increase on County Commissioners and school board members must be “equal to the percentage increase set by the state for other county officials pursuant to TCA §8-24-102(d).”
In an online Sept. 12 article by Huckaby, he stated, “While adopting the county budget in June, the previous Commission made a change that gave the general government employees a much needed 6% raise.
“In the days that followed, there was a lot of confusion about whether that increase also applied to elected officials,” Huckaby stated. “Initial media reporting suggested it included sheriff and mayor, but that was not accurate.”
He stated as he dug into the issue, “I learned that state law establishes annual compensation adjustments for most county officials while County Commission compensation is handled separately through our annual budget process. “Because Board of Education members receive the same monthly compensation as Commissioners, those adjustments affect them as well,” Huckaby explained.
“The current process has historically been handled this way, in part, to avoid Commissioners having to directly vote on their own salaries,” he stated. “However, I do not think our current system provides the clarity or transparency that it should.
“I am currently working with legal and finance on legislation that would tie future Commission and school board compensation adjustments to the same state-certified formula used for other county officials,” Huckaby stated.
“Under Tennessee Code Annotated § 8-24-102, general county officers receive annual compensation adjustments tied to state employee increases, with those adjustments capped at 5% per year,” he added. “That formula applies to offices, including the county mayor, sheriff, trustee, property assessor, county clerk and register of deeds.
“Personally, I am not comfortable being in the position of setting my own future salary, and I suspect many of you feel the same way,” Huckaby stated. “For that reason, I am proposing that we consider an approach similar to Hamilton County and tie future Commission and school board compensation adjustments to the same state-certified metric.
“That would give us one clear, predictable and transparent standard rather than requiring future Commissions to revisit their own compensation each year,” he added. “I would like to hold a workshop to discuss this proposal."
