The Montgomery County Salary Commission held its meeting on Oct. 26 at the Montgomery County Courthouse to set future salaries for elected officials.

After the 90-minute meeting, the commission voted to adopt a new salary schedule for five elected officials, increase the percentage of the base salary to 115 percent, reauthorize the COLA (cost-of-living adjustment) to up to three percent for the new salary schedule through 2032 and set the coroner base salary at $34,797.62.

All of the county’s elected officials except the sheriff and prosecuting attorney attended the meeting. County attorney Travis Elliott joined the meeting by phone.

Elliott is the contracted attorney for the Missouri Association of Counties. Presiding Commissioner Ryan Poston said Elliott helped the Missouri Legislature draft the state’s House Bill No. 1825, which changed the minimum salary of county officials.

“That’s why he was helping us understand it and making sure we didn’t mess up,” Poston said.

Elliott said during the call that starting in January, elected officials who are beginning a new term will be on a new salary schedule. They are the presiding commissioner, collector, treasurer, recorder of deeds and county clerk. The other elected officials -– public administrator, coroner, assessor and associate commissioners -– will stay on the old salary schedule until January 2029.

The presiding commissioner, collector, treasurer, recorder and county clerk are eligible to receive the 115 percent increase of their base salary. The other elected positions will stay at 105 percent until their next election.

As of Nov. 2, the prosecuting attorney is the highest paid elected official at $141,173, followed by the sheriff at $77,645, public administrator at $44,212, assessor at $42,923, recorder of deeds, treasurer, collector and county clerk at $39,981, associate commissioners at $29,789, coroner at $29,144 and presiding commissioner at $28,080.

Per the House Bill 1825, the sheriff and prosecuting attorney are not part of the Montgomery County Salary Commission.

1st Presiding Commissioner Dave Teeter said setting salary schedules for elected officials is not an easy task.

“You have so many different classes of counties,” he said. “You got first, second, third and fourth class. They’re all not equal in what they pay. That’s why the coroner situation is complicated because some counties did not implement the additional $14,000 that counties could. The whole reason why they passed that bill (HB 1825) was counties were having trouble getting someone to run for coroner and being paid only $14,000.”

2nd District Commissioner Doug Lensing said the bill changed the requirements for education and training for the coroner. According to the bill, the coroner must complete at least 20 hours of classroom instruction and training each calendar year. The training must cover the operation of the coroner’s office, legal responsibilities and technical skills and knowledge.

“You have somebody who has to go to all of this training and has to get all of these certificates and make $14,000,” Lensing said. “They would say, ‘It’s not worth it to me.’”

Jason Luna is the county’s coroner. He is also the Montgomery City police chief. Poston said in the past years, county coroners worked in occupations such as carpenters and dentists.

“We try to get people with some medical experience in there to get paid something,” he said. “It’s an elected position, but I don’t call it a full-time position. But it’s become more full-time.”