Dept. of Corrections employees among 500 getting raises from the county

The paychecks for approximately 500 Shawnee County employees are about to get a little bigger.

The Shawnee County Commission approved new contracts with Teamsters Local No. 696. Clerical, corrections, health agency professional and health agency support staff and public works employees will all be getting raises.

The new contract comes after a CBIZ compensation study. The study found many Shawnee County employees were making wages below employees at municipalities of similar size. In order to attract and retain employees, the commission made it a priority to add the raises into the county’s budget.

“I don’t know if everybody realized how important this was to Shawnee County,” said Brian Cole, director, department of corrections.

Cole says about 200 of employees are a part of this group receiving additional wages.

“I can tell you how important this was to our [department], we needed these raises, we had to have these raises,” he said.

In 2015, Cole says DOC hired 65 new employees. As of Thursday, he says all of the employees were no longer employed in his department.

“A lot of times I sit back and wonder, is it management, is it the leadership,” he told commissioners. “When we do exit interviews, it doesn’t come down to that. It comes down to the salaries for doing that type of job.”

Commissioner Shelly Buhler says there is one more group of county employees whose raises need to be approved. She expects those contracts to come to the commission next week.

“My main emphasis here was to say thank you,” said Cole. “I know we are very excited.”