Commissioners cap future pay raises for elected officials

Over the last three decades, elected officials have seen raises as high as 7%.

By RICH CHOLODOFSKY
TribLive

Future pay raises for Westmoreland County elected officials will be capped at 2.75%.

The commissioners, at a special evening meeting on Wednesday, unanimously approved a resolution that changes the method by which elected officials receive pay annual pay hikes, abolishing a system that had been in place for three decades that allowed salaries to more than double over that time period.

Pay raise caps for commissioners, along with the county controller, treasurer, sheriff, register of wills and recorder of deeds will begin in 2028, when new fouryear terms for those positions will begin following next year’s election cycle.

Caps on future raises for the county’s clerk of courts, prothonotary and coroner will be implemented in 2030, which will be the start of the next terms for those positions.

It’s a plan Commissioner Ted Kopas, a Democrat, lobbied for since he returned to office in 2023. Republican Commissioners Sean Kertes and Doug Chew previously called Kopas’ support for the cap political theater.

“It’s a better way of doing business in Westmoreland County,” Kopas said. “We need to live within the means of the county and we need to acknowledge the real suffering of the people that we’re sworn to serve in these challenging economic times. I regret it wasn’t done three years ago.”

Both Kertes and Chew said current economic conditions swayed them to consider reconsidering the pay hike cap.

“The economy has not gotten better for seven years,” Kertes said. “We lived through two (presidential) administrations and we’re seeing costs not coming down on groceries, on gasoline on utility bills. If anything they continue to rise.

“We’re seeing the constant inflation and the constant increases. Residents are suffering, so that’s why we did this,” he added.

Chew said it was a good time to put a cap on raises.

“I came into this job to do public service not to get rich, so I think it was a good time to put a cap on these raises,” Chew said. “I appreciate that Commissioner Kopas has brought this up for three years. But no matter when we would have done it, it would have gone into effect Jan. 1, 2028.”

The commissioners vote amended a resolution approved in 1996 that initially granted the county’s elected officials an immediate 15% raise and authorized subsequent annual pay hikes to be tied to economic factors. Since that initial salary increase, annual raises have been based on the Consumer Price Index for Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey, which is calculated by the U.S. Department of Labor.

That index takes into account average consumer spending differences over the previous 12 months for food, shelter, energy and other cost-of-living expenses.

In years where the CPI falls below 2.75%, future raises will mirror the index.

Over the last three decades, elected officials have seen raises as high as 7% while some years no pay hikes were issued as a result of a flat economy.

Commissioners and county row officers received 3.25% raises in 2026. In the last five years, raises for the county’s elected officials totaled more than 23%. Raises for 2027 have yet to be determined.

Westmoreland commissioners prior to 1996 earned base salaries of $43,500, according reports on filed with the county controller’s office. Commissioners this year earn $101,845.

The 1996 resolution that implemented the annual pay hikes for elected officials came after a decade of flat salaries for the county’s public servants.

Former Commissioner Tom Balya, who was at the start of the first of his four terms in office in 1996 voted against the implementing the raises, at the time saying he was a newcomer in office and that it was inappropriate to increase his salary.

Balya recalled former Register of Wills Earl Keim lobbied in 1996 against the pay annual pay hikes and quipped about its potential ramifications.

“He stood up at our meeting and said we better not raise salaries or qualified people might run for these jobs,” Balya said.

County records indicate the 1996 pay raise plan came as an agreement between then commissioners Dick Vidmer and Terry Marolt. Vidmer agreed to support the pay raises in return for his vote to back Marolt’s plan to study converting Westmoreland County’s form of government to home rule.

Vidmer eventually reneged on that promise and home rule was never considered.

Commissioners three decades earlier before voting on the pay raises heard public a series of comments from residents who opposed the resolution.

No public comments were made at Wednesday’s meeting to cap future raises.

Balya, in an interview last week, suggested the current commissioners pay raise cap was likely politically motivated with an election year ahead in 2027.

“They will get zero political mileage out of it,” Balya said. ‘It’s been a non-issue.”