The Butler County salary board this morning set pay hikes for most of 150 nonunion workers.

Aside from a few posts, which were mainly vacant, receiving no increase, most employees will receive 1 percent or 2 percent under what the county calls a cost-of-living adjustment.

County Controller Ben Holland originally proposed giving higher increases of 3 percent to 5 percent to some employees based on the findings of a salary study, but modified the plan today.

The board voted 3 to 1 to implement the increases. Commissioners Bill McCarrier and Dale Pinkerton sided with Holland. Commissioner Jim Eckstein dissented, saying the county shouldn’t delay raising the salaries of underpaid employees.

Separate votes giving 2 percent increases were taken for each row office, the public defender’s office and county court staff.

Row officers, the public defender and the president judge each get a salary board vote for their respective personnel.

The only dissenting vote for those increases was Eckstein, who opposed the increase for two employees in the register of wills/clerk of orphans’ court. He said one of the posts would be overpaid.