Possible Impact of Census on Official's Salaries

Counties should begin thinking now about how the upcoming 2010 census could impact officials' salaries. The census process will begin in earnest over the next few months. For census years, April 1 is set as the formal date of the census. This has an impact on county official's salaries as minimum statutory salaries are set for county officials based on population classes. On an annual basis, county officials' minimum salaries are adjusted based on the percentage increase in compensation granted to state employees the prior year. As the state budget has tightened, state employee raises have been rare and therefore county officials' salaries have also seen few increases. After the census is complete however, a number of Tennessee counties will see population increases that move them up one or, in a small number of cases, two population classes and therefore trigger new minimum salaries for county officials. It is important to plan in advance and set aside funds for this purpose if you expect your county to move into a new class, because after the census is certified the salary increases will become retroactive back to April 1 of this year.

I will try to follow up with more information on this topic and a projection of those counties likely to move up a class in an upcoming newsletter. The staff at CTAS has already done some excellent work in this area to assist counties in planning for this budgetary increase and they brought this issue to my attention.