Habersham’s proposed employee COLA carried a $145,000 price tag, but no recorded verdict

Habersham County commissioners were presented Feb. 15, 2021, with a proposed cost-of-living adjustment for full- and part-time county employees estimated at about $145,000 for the remainder of fiscal year 2021. The proposal reached the commission alongside other compensation ideas, but the cited work-session excerpt does not say whether commissioners adopted it, changed it or rejected it.

The unanswered outcome matters because a countywide adjustment would affect both employee paychecks and public spending. It also included a proposed change to the county’s pay tables so that four employees already at the top of their salary ranges could receive the increase. The $145,000 figure was an estimate of remaining-year cost, not proof that the county appropriated or spent that amount.

The February proposal followed an earlier commission discussion in which Commissioner Harkness said the board would examine county employee salaries and options for increasing them during retreat planning. That earlier discussion showed interest in reviewing compensation, but it did not set out a specific COLA or document a completed pay action. The excerpt does not state the exact date of that earlier meeting.

County employees had a direct interest in whether the proposed adjustment would reach the workforce, particularly the four workers whose placement at the top of the existing pay scale could otherwise have excluded them. Commissioners, meanwhile, were considering the fiscal consequences for the county. Staff also presented separate proposed increases for CDL drivers: $2 an hour for Class A license holders and $1.50 an hour for Class B holders. Those driver raises were distinct from the employee-wide COLA.

What the meeting account establishes is that the COLA, the pay-table revision and the separate CDL-driver increases were presented for commission consideration on Feb. 15. It does not establish an approval or rejection, a revised amount or eligible group, a budget adjustment, or a payroll change. Nor can the separate driver proposal be treated as evidence that the broader COLA took effect.

The next public step is a review of the official minutes or another action record from the commission’s Feb. 15 regular meeting for a distinct disposition of the COLA. Until a record shows whether the board adopted, amended, deferred or took no action on the proposal—and whether it paired that decision with a budget change—residents cannot determine whether the adjustment described that day became county policy.