When Carroll County employees started leaving several years ago to work for higher salaries in nearby counties, those left behind knew they had to boost pay to thwart Carroll?s devolution into a bedroom community.
“It was sort of a wake-up call to us when we started losing all these good people to other counties,” said Carole Hammen, county human resources director.
The Carroll County Human Resources Department released its first-of-its-kind personnel report Tuesday, showing that as of June 30, 2005, the average salary for county employees might not be as high as neighboring counties, but it is higher than salaries in 2004 when a salary plan was put into place.
Joseph Varrone, of Manchester, was one of many county employees who left to make a better living elsewhere.
After four years, he quit his job in 1999 as a budget analyst for Carroll, where he made $35,000, to take another budget position in Howard County for $10,000 more a year and a pension plan.
A higher salary of $75,000 and a promotion lured him back to work for Carroll in September as a performance auditor administrator.
County resident Jeff Topper also left Carroll?s budget office after 11 years to work for Howard County, but returned after the pay plan was put in place.
“The county had done some salary adjustments because it was falling so out of whack” with neighboring counties, Topper said.
“It made it attractive to come back here.”
Before 2005, some Carroll County employees made as much as 40 percent less than Howard County workers, but now the salary gap has been reduced to 20 percent, said Pamela Lindsay, deputy director of human resources.
A Carroll County employee ? not including the sheriff?s department, state?s attorney?s office or the courts? makes $37,700 a year, according to the new personnel report.
Howard County does not release a similar salary report, but Art Griffin, Howard County?s chief of classification and pay, said the average pay for comparable Howard County employees is $51,800.
The comparison, however, might not be fair. Howard County workers? larger salaries reflect the area?s higher cost of living and housing prices, Griffin said.
