It’s back to the drawing board for the Butler County salary board in trying to cut jobs due to the privatization of the Sunnyview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.

Board members remained divided Wednesday on how to prune the human resources department.

“We just disagree on how to make the cuts,” said Commissioner Jim Eckstein.

Part of Sunnyview’s annual deficit, which county officials attributed to the need for a sale, were indirect costs that the county assessed to the nursing home.

Those indirect costs included hours spent by government center employees on Sunnyview issues, which amounted to $295,609 in 2013.

The three commissioners and the county controller, who comprise the salary board, previously agreed staffing of human resources was one area that needed reviewed.

Commissioner Bill McCarrier, board chairman, proposed eliminating two posts and replacing one with a part-time job.

“The sale of Sunnyview created a lesser workload for some departments in the building,” McCarrier said.

He wanted an administrative clerk post, which pays a base salary of $18.17 an hour, to become part-time at $13.25 an hour and the worker’s compensation and benefits coordinator post, which pays $21.70 an hour, eliminated.

However, only Commissioner Dale Pinkerton supported McCarrier’s proposal.

Eckstein and county Controller Ben Holland, whose second deputy Sherry Britton voted on his behalf, opposed it.

Although Eckstein offered a counterproposal reversing McCarrier’s idea by making the coordinator post part-time, it also did not get enough support.

Eckstein said human resources director Lori Altman should take an 11.5 percent pay cut since her workload decreased with the Sunnyview sale.

Altman in 2011 received an extra 20 percent raise in addition to the 3 percent given to all nonunion employees. At the time, her on-call status for 24-hour operations such as Sunnyview were cited as justification for the pay hike.

Two county departments, the county prison and emergency services’ 911 dispatch center, also operate 24 hours a day.

Both Eckstein and Holland maintain there should be cuts in multiple county departments.

McCarrier stressed human resources was just a starting point. He said the board would revisit the issue before the end of the year.

“We’re not done with this issue,” McCarrier said.

Holland agreed.

“This definitely will be revisited,” he said in an interview.