photo by: Journal-World

The Douglas County Commission will hold their Wednesday meeting at the Douglas County Public Works building, 3755 E 25th St.

After approving pay increases for other county employees, Douglas County commissioners will consider a more than 19% increase to the county administrator’s base salary — a raise of more than $41,000.

On Wednesday, commissioners will consider setting the new base salary for County Administrator Sarah Plinsky. Currently, Plinsky’s base salary — the amount before taxes, benefits or other additional compensation — is $213,762 a year. The proposed raise would bump it up to $255,091 a year, an increase of $41,329.

The proposed raise is based on recommendations from a classification and compensation study done by the human resources group McGrath. That study suggested aligning county employees’ salaries with the 70th percentile of local wages for similar roles, meaning that they would earn about 20% more than the median wage for similar positions in other regional government entities.

While the County Commission voted to implement these recommendations for other county employees in October, it did not make any changes at that time to the salary for the county administrator, who has a separate compensation agreement.

When McGrath collected data on base salaries for positions comparable to the county administrator job, the lowest salary it found in the region was $213,009, and the highest was $333,378. According to a memo to the commission from the county counselor, John T. Bullock, the $255,091 amount was based on that range and Plinsky’s level of experience, “coupled with an assumption that her job performance rating would be very positive.”

Plinsky’s employment agreement for the county administrator job began on Sept. 11, 2019, according to the memo. When she began as county administrator, her base salary was $185,000, as the Journal-World reported.

The compensation change is part of the commission’s consent agenda, a group of items that can be voted on and approved in a single motion.

In other business, commissioners will:

• As part of the consent agenda, consider a real estate contract that would transfer a portion of Franklin Cemetery, a more than 150-year-old cemetery where more than a dozen early Lawrence residents are buried, to the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas.

According to a memo in the agenda, the parcel of land is on Venture Park Drive but cannot be commercially developed because of its past use as a cemetery. The county currently maintains the property, including by mowing it, but representatives from St. John’s Church and the Archdiocese approached county staff about acquiring the parcel and maintaining it themselves. The proposed agreement would transfer the land to the archdiocese for a nominal sum of $10, and the archdiocese would be responsible for title fees and other costs associated with the transfer.

As the Journal-World has reported, the cemetery was previously abandoned and the Knights of Columbus of Council 1372, from St. John the Evangelist Catholic church, began an effort to clean up the cemetery in 2016. More than 80 burials took place in the cemetery from about 1870 to 1917.

* As part of the consent agenda, consider authorizing the county administrator to accept a $49,665 Community Development Block Grant, administered by the City of Lawrence, to support the Housing Stabilization Collaborative. The collaborative is an effort to help people access affordable housing, including through rent and utility assistance.

* As part of the consent agenda, consider approving a legislative priorities statement for 2025. The statement lays out priorities that the county would like state legislators to focus on in their 2025 session, which begins in January.

• Conduct a public hearing for the amended 2024 county budget and consider adopting it. An amended budget is a regular part of the annual budget process, in which any unanticipated revenues or expenses that were not part of the original 2024 budget are accounted for.

• Review a reimbursement schedule for substance use services in Douglas County for patients who are uninsured, underinsured, or unable to access detox and residential and intensive outpatient treatment services. The schedule outlines how much funding health care providers will be reimbursed for delivering these services. According to the commission’s meeting agenda, the community partners involved have already “reached consensus” on the schedule, and it is being presented to the commission for informational purposes only.

The County Commission’s business meeting will begin at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Douglas County Public Works training room at 3755 E. 25th St. The meeting will also be available via Zoom.