PUD administrators to get pay raises

EPHRATA - Grant County PUD's manager, auditor, treasurer and attorney received two-percent raises recently.

The raises are retroactive to April 16, 2010, because their annual performance evaluations from 2009 were only recently completed.

Their raises are in line with a two-percent raise that Grant PUD's 200 other nonunion employees received last year, said Rita Bjork, a district spokesperson.

The raise catches the manager, auditor, treasurer and attorney up with the rest of the other employees.

With the raise, the new annual salaries are as follows: General Manager Tim Culbertson, $275,888, Treasurer Jim Bunch, $159,986, Auditor Kim Justice, $115,818, and attorney Mitch Delabarre, $200,940.

The above employees must receive a score of 2.5 or above on their evaluations to receive raises.

Commission President Randy Allred's vote was the only dissenting vote on the raises during a recent commission meeting.

While not naming names, he said he didn't feel everyone performed at the same level.

He later declined to elaborate on which employee or employees he was referring to.

Allred told the Columbia Basin Herald he generally tends to be more critical, which shows on his scoring in the employee evaluations.

Part of his criticism is because is he hasn't always supported past pay increases, but went along with the raises to be agreeable.

"It's time for us to get a better handle on our salaries, wages and overheads at all levels," he commented.

Commissioner Terry Brewer said in all four cases, their performance met established goals and objectives.

Commissioner Tom Flint said that in his book, the raises allowed everyone to be treated the same way.

Commissioner Dale Walker was not present during the meeting.

Commissioner Bob Bernd later explained why the evaluations for Culbertson, Bunch, Justice and Delabarre took a few months to complete.

At the time, he was commission president.

They started from scratch, by writing an evaluation form and studying forms used by other utilities.

Meetings followed, to discuss goals and objectives.

The process was hard and was placed on the back burner because of the various issues the district was dealing with last year, such as Crescent Bar, he said.

"Hopefully, it will be something we'll build upon and the process will improve as we go," Bernd commented.

Before last year, there had not been a formal evaluation process for the four commission appointees.

The idea came about because some didn't feel the past evaluation process was very objective.

"We felt we should be able to compare from year to year, and have a more formal process," Bernd said.

Grant PUD's union employees recently reached a tentative settlement for the 2011-14 collective bargaining agreement.

They were expected to vote on a union contract later this week, according to Bjork