The quarterly county salary board meeting on Wednesday saw job titles modified and a raise for nonunion employees in the county row offices.

Nonunion employees in the courts and offices of the clerk of courts, controller, coroner, district attorney, prothonotary, registrar, recorder of deeds, sheriff and treasurer will see a 3% annual pay increase beginning on Jan. 1.

Employees hired after a certain date are not eligible for the raise per the county's compensation policy.

Leslie Osche, county commissioners chairwoman and salary board member, said some union employees were exceeding the pay rates of their nonunion supervisors.

She said the 3% increase would mitigate that situation in all offices.

Osche said the county experienced exhorbitant salary growth, but the current commissioners have managed to slow that growth down, so taxpayers are not burdened with ever-increasing number under the “salary and wages” line item in each year's budget.

Each row officer made a motion to approve the 3% nonunion pay increase one by one.

Lori Altman, the county's human resources officer and chief clerk, said the increases will cost an additional $348,662 next year.

Osche said $235,812 of that amount will come from the 2022 budget's general fund, and $112,850 will be paid using state and federal dollars.

The salary board also ratified the re-evaluation of several jobs in the county and fixed the salaries in other positions.

Much of the action involved eliminating outdated or ineffective job titles and replacing them with updated versions.

Some actions fixed salaries for various county positions, while other items were the elimination or creation of positions in the county.

The base rate for the county's sheriff deputies rose from $15.92 per hour to $18.36 in the ratification vote.

Osche said positions can be reevaluated every four years or as needed, according to county policy.

The reevaluations and nonunion wage increase were approved in anticipation of the 2022 budget approval at the end of the year, Osche said.

The regular county commissioners meeting was held just before the salary board meeting, and dozens of residents who want the commissioners to agree to a forensic audit of the 2020 election once again attended.

Several members of the group spoke during the public comment session at the end of the meeting.

The group members complained that their request to see the operator's manual for the county's voting machines was denied because trade secrets could be exposed, called mail-in ballots “corrupt,” said a county independent forensic election audit could serve as a template for other counties, contended that the ballot scanner used during elections can be tampered with and hacked, and one woman said hydroxycholoroquine and the anti-parasite drug Ivermectin can cure COVID-19 in its early stages.

She denounced Butler Memorial Hospital for administering Remdesivir for the virus.

Others in the group listed numbers they said indicate that fraud occurred in the election.

The group was admonished by Osche and Wil White, county solicitor, when they began jeering at the comments of Catherine Lalonde, chairwoman of the county Democratic Committee.

The commissioners took no action on the group's request to agree to a forensic audit of the 2020 election.