PORT ANGELES — Clallam County commissioners next month will consider a one-time refund for union employees who made concessions three years ago.
Commissioners Mike Doherty and Jim McEntire voted Monday to call for a Dec. 2 hearing on debatable budget emergencies, including a $482,559 medical benefit premium concession refund.
Nearly all county employees volunteered in late 2011 to pay an amount equal to their 2012 contractually-guaranteed cost of living raise to the employer portion of their medical benefits to help cover the $1 million cost of the Darold Stenson double-murder trial.
County workers also took 16 unpaid furlough days in 2012 and again in 2013.
Last July, the state reimbursed the county $500,000 for the murder trial, which resulted in Stenson’s second conviction for the 1993 slayings of his wife and business partner near Sequim.
If the concession refund is approved, eligible employees will be reimbursed in a single payment Dec. 10.
The amounts would range from about $1,400 on the low end to $3,800 on the high end for full-time employees, County Administrator Jim Jones said.
Commissioner Mike Chapman voted against the call for hearing based on his opposition to the refund.
He said the taxpayer money was specifically earmarked for a murder trial, and should be used in upcoming murder cases rather than as reimbursement for past concessions.
“You cannot connect the two with any reasonable amount of logic,” Chapman said.
Payroll costs are as high as they have ever been at the county, Chapman said, adding that he was “completely befuddled” by his fellow commissioners’ support for the refund.
“For next year’s budget, we’ll pay more for payroll than we’ve ever paid before,” Chapman said in a Tuesday interview.
Doherty said it is “only right and fair” to reimburse employees for half of their volunteered concession in the same year that the county received the refund.
The one-time refund will not add ongoing base salary costs in the future, Doherty said in an email.
McEntire, who took office in 2012 but monitored the union negotiations in late 2011, said employees at the time “did a very difficult thing, but the right thing, in their concession agreement.”
“And so I think it’s really incumbent on the county commission to do the right thing in return now that the facts have changed and this money is in hand,” McEntire said.
“I fully support this thing.”
McEntire added: “We value our employees, and I think this is the right thing to do.”
The six-week Stenson trial was held in Kitsap County with retired Clallam County Superior Court Judge S. Brooke Taylor presiding.
Retired Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney Deborah Kelly represented the state.
The hearing on quarterly debatable budget emergencies will be held at 10:30 a.m. Dec. 2 in Room 160 at the Clallam County Courthouse, 223 E. Fourth St., Port Angeles.
Commissioners moved their Tuesday business meeting to Monday because of Veterans Day.
The courthouse will be closed today.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5072, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
