Although the county clerk’s office is no longer officially responsible for Leelanau County’s finances, they nonetheless helped complete next year’s budget and will continue to help manage payroll and prepare for the March 2024 audit. The board of commissioners agreed Tuesday to pay stipends to two clerk’s office employees for up to four months for the additional work, albeit reluctantly by some members.
Per the board’s decision, County Clerk Michelle Crocker and her chief deputy clerk, Jennifer Zywicki will both receive fixed weekly payments of $250 – 10 hours per week at $25 an hour – through April 30, 2024. Discussion by the finance committee indicates the payments will be canceled once a more “permanent structure” is in place.
Interim finance director Cathy Hartesvelt said that these stipends originated as “temporary, end-of-year support” for the finance department after the department’s second director, Jared Prince, resigned in December 2022, and were renewed earlier this year in June 2023.
“That will be less than the amount that you are paying an account clerk. With our combined experience, the bang that you are getting for the buck far exceeds 10 hours a week,” Crocker told the board at a Dec. 5 meeting. “We’re coming into an extremely, extremely busy year, and to be even more direct than probably Cathy wants to be, or Jen, it’s non-negotiable.”
Whether she was overly direct or not, Crocker did appear to be in the position to dictate terms, as the rest of the board seemed to agree with county commissioner Melinda Lautner’s assessment that they have no option but to continue the stipends until a more long-term plan for the finance department takes shape.
However, board chairman Ty Wessell voiced opposition to stipends in general. He supported the motion to pay Crocker and Zywicki’s stipends and acknowledged their hard work, but also said that he wants the board to “consider a motion at some point to say that we will never, ever, ever, ever again even have the word ‘stipend’ on a board agenda, because they are problematic.”
The commissioners did not consider any such motion at their December meeting, but as Hartesvelt noted, such a resolution can only apply to the current commissioners, as they cannot bind future board members with their decisions.
Wessell told the newspaper that by offering stipends, county government runs the risk of disincentivizing teamwork. He said the board awards them inconsistently, with other county employees and officials besides Crocker and Zywicki putting in extra work on finances without getting stipends themselves.
“I also believe that relying on stipends to get things done sometimes causes us to neglect real staffing needs that might better be addressed by adding staff positions,” Wessell said. “Because we do not have a formal policy on stipends, our current practice has the potential for creating issues with staff who believe some get paid ‘extra’ and some do not.”
“I also think it not appropriate to pay stipends for staff who are receiving an hourly wage,” he continued. “ As one Commissioner, I would favor a ‘Schedule of Extra Duty Pay’ that would be carefully developed for all anticipated extra duty assignments. In discussions with staff and elected officials, I do know that the payment of stipends over the past several months has created staff concern.”
Rexroat agreed with Wessell, saying stipends “dilutes the wage structure (and) creates discomfort among staff,” but Lautner contradicted the other two finance committee members in claiming that she hasn’t heard any such complaints from other employees at the county government center.
Wessell suggested that the commissioners could cancel one of the stipends after the county follows through on hiring an additional account clerk for the finance department, and the other could be cancelled when they hire a long-term replacement for former finance director Sean Cowan, who resigned Oct. 23. The county posted an advertisement for an account clerk on Dec. 4.
Finance committee chair and county commissioner Doug Rexroat added that the stipend agreement can be reviewed and terminated prior to the end of April if the county manages to fill these positions before then. However, the county appears to be operating under the assumption that finding a new finance director will take longer than that, based on input from their financial services advisory firm last month.
