County Gives Workers 7% of Annual Pay

RISON - Christmas came early for county workers Monday night when the Cleveland County Quorum Court approved giving each employee a onetime payment of 7 percent of their annual pay after the county finished the fiscal year better than expected. Meanwhile, a motion to give a pay increase to justices of the peace serving on the quorum court failed to garner enough votes for passage. Those issues and others were addressed during the quorum court's regular monthly meeting Monday night at the courthouse. The court's decision to give employees the 7 percent onetime payment came as it was discussing the 2023 county budget. Justice of the Peace Donnie Herring, who was elected as the chairman of the budget committee when it met on Nov. 30, led the budget discussion during Monday night's meeting. The budget committee consists of all nine justices of the quorum court. Herring commended all the elected officials for keeping a close eye on their individual office budgets throughout the year, which allowed there to be enough money left over at the end of the year to provide the one-time payment to employees. "The elected officials were looking out for the entire county," Herring said. "They should be commended for that." Originally, the quorum court was going to recommend a 5 percent payment to employees, but they were willing to consider more if the county budget would allow it based on a final analysis by County Treasurer Wanda Leopard. "Looking at everything we projected, I see no problem at all," Leopard told the quorum court about the 7 percent payment. She said the payments cost a little more than $120,000 and noted that even with the payment, the county still had $161,540 left in the budget. Herring said the final 2023 budget was nearly $6.2 million, which he described as a small increase over last year. The budget did include all the recommendations made by the quorum court's pay ...