Jan. 18—SOMERSET, Pa. — Somerset County’s Salary Board will, at times, have new faces sitting alongside the county’s commissioners for votes on raises and wages — county employees themselves.

It’s a change being enacted following the advice of the county’s new legal team, which said the county should have department heads or their designated representatives included for salary board votes that impact their own departments.

Longtime Somerset County Commissioner Pamela Tokar-Ickes expressed concern about the move, calling it a sudden, “historic” departure from decades of past practice.

As described in the County Code, county commissioners are elected to serve as the fiscal managers of tens of millions of dollars annually in tax revenues.

And historically, salary board decisions dealing with the commissioners’ hires — department managers and staff included — have been decided by the county’s ever-changing three commissioners board members, who serve alongside the county treasurer and at times, a fellow elected row officer when matters involve that row officer’s staff.

But Carolyn Shaw, a New Kensington attorney hired this month alongside Somerset attorney Benjamin Shaw to serve as county solicitor, said that, in her view, the guidelines spelling out required salary board conduct differentiate between elected officials and “executive heads” of an agency within the county.

She said there are different interpretations on what that means across the state.

To Show and Carroll, the county should make every effort to have a fifth voting member at the table — not only to give department heads a voice but also to avoid the possibility of tie votes.

“It’s our (legal) opinion,” Shaw told Tokar- Ickes during a brief discussion between the pair about the proposed changes.

“I respectfully disagree,” Tokar-Ickes said. “As commissioners, how can we maintain budget oversight once a budget is finalized if the board (can be overruled on expenditures)?”

Shaw said the board will still hold a voting majority if they are in lockstep on a decision.

President Commissioner Brian Fochtman, who alongside Commissioner Irv Kimmel Jr. campaigned in 2023 pushing for county employees to be treated more fairly, supported Shaw’s interpretation of the salary board guidelines.

“It’s a wonderful idea,” Fochtman said.

Department leaders should help decide whether someone in their staff deserves a raise, he said.

“The department heads …. have their feet on the ground. They know where the responsibilities lie,” Fochtman said during an interview after the board’s meeting.

He said Shaw and Carroll approached him with their interpretation of the salary board rules of conduct.

The board also agreed, however, that the new policy needs to be sorted out before making an abrupt change. That includes developing a procedure to notify both row officers and the president judge — who already have as-needed roles on the board — and department heads — when a salary board meeting is planned and their presence is needed for a vote that pertains to their office.

Fochtman, Kimmel and Tokar-Ickes all agreed that if the board is going to operate that way, then guidance must be clear on who would vote in a department manager’s place if an agenda item creates conflict of interest for that individual.

County commissioners, who are also considering amending the current $60.7 million budget, tabled a series of votes scheduled for the salary board Tuesday regarding previously proposed — and budgeted — wage increases for more than 100 full-time nonunion workers. The board indicated they’ll be on hold while they complete their budget review process and also enable proper notification to department heads so they can join them on the board at a later meeting.

The county commissioners’ salary board authority has been a hot topic for more than a year, with the commissioners taking Treasurer Anthony DeLuca to court to defend their majority powers in 2022 at a point he argued the treasurer had a veto-level vote.

A board of three Somerset County judges sided with the commissioners board in the civil matter.

Across the region, county officials in Cambria, Blair and Indiana counties said Wednesday they follow the same voting procedures Somerset was previously following until Tuesday.

That is, that only each county’s three county commissioners and certain row officers — in Blair and Cambria’s case, the controller, and in Indiana’s, the treasurer — cast votes unless a salary board item pertains to another row office. In those cases, the elected row officer who heads that office is also expected to vote.

Blair County Controller A.C. Stickel IV said the County Code is clear — and expressed concern about enabling county employees to make decisions on how taxpayers’ dollars are spent.

“I’m the president of the (Pennsylvania) State Association of County Controllers,” he said. “And there’s nothing in the code that permits that,” Stickel said.

“If that was the case, all it would take is one rogue commissioner elected into office or one rogue controller to swing a vote the other way and blow a budget that was created to control spending out of the water,” Stickel said.

In the case of agencies such as the county maintenance department, veterans affairs — departments which aren’t row offices — the executive heads of agencies that the code refers to in Section 1625 are the commissioners themselves, he added.

It’s a matter of checks and balances, he said.

Commissioners create budgets and are supposed to follow them — with county controllers elected to office to make sure they do so. If either or both fail at the job, voters can remove them from office. That’s not the case with a county employee, who is paid with county funds but does not answer to taxpayers, Stickel said.

Indiana County Chief Clerk Robin Gorman also raised concern in a telephone interview Wednesday.

But to Shaw, the code’s guidance isn’t as clear.

As written and interpreted, Somerset’s salary board should be placing a greater emphasis on having five people at the table, she added.

“If it hasn’t been done in the past, it doesn’t mean it was done correctly,” Shaw said.