Coroner pay raise and personnel restructuring top Fiscal Court agenda

By John Chaney | The Winchester Sun

The Clark County Fiscal Court took a sig­nif­i­cant step toward adjust­ing local offi­cial com­pen­sa­tion Thursday night, vot­ing to approve a sub­stan­tial pay increase for County Coroner Neil Oliver and restruc­tur­ing the department’s deputy salaries fol­low­ing a recent res­ig­na­tion. The deci­sion served as a cen­ter­piece for a meet­ing that also addressed his­tor­i­cal preser­va­tion and the main­te­nance of coun­ty infrastructure.

Oliver appeared before the court to request a fair adjust­ment for the upcom­ing term, mov­ing the position’s salary from $29,000 to $40,000. He char­ac­ter­ized the role as that of a “prob­lem solver”, who must man­age dif­fi­cult scenes, often for hours at a time, to ensure emer­gency and law enforce­ment units aren’t tied up unnecessarily.

“The stuff that [we’ve] got to see and the stuff that [we’ve] got to do is above it,” Oliver not­ed, empha­siz­ing that the cur­rent pay did not reflect the grav­i­ty and demands of the work.

Beyond the Coroner’s own salary, the court dis­cussed a plan to absorb the duties of a recent­ly resigned third deputy coro­ner. Rather than hir­ing a new staff mem­ber, Oliver pro­posed redis­trib­ut­ing the exist­ing $26,700 allo­ca­tion for deputy pay between the two remain­ing officials.

Under the plan, the Chief Deputy would receive 60% of that total, while the oth­er deputy would receive 40%. Oliver not­ed that this restruc­tur­ing actu­al­ly cre­ates long-term sav­ings for the coun­ty by elim­i­nat­ing the need for addi­tion­al uni­forms and bonds for a third person.

“It will save us mon­ey because there’s expen­di­tures that we have for each deputy that now we won’t have to have,” Oliver explained.

The court approved the mea­sure, not­ing that the depart­men­tal bud­get would remain under the $26,700 cap for the cur­rent year.

In addi­tion to per­son­nel mat­ters, the court turned its atten­tion to the upcom­ing 250^th anniver­sary of the American Revolution.

Barbara Disney, rep­re­sent­ing the Clark County Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), request­ed per­mis­sion to place a “Patriot Marker” on the cour­t­house lawn. The mark­er, ful­ly fund­ed by the DAR, aims to hon­or the patri­ots who set­tled in the Boonesborough region.

“What I am request­ing is per­mis­sion to place it in the cour­t­house lawn,” Disney told the court.

The court grant­ed the request unan­i­mous­ly, though the mark­er like­ly won’t be man­u­fac­tured and installed until 2027 due to nation­al
back­logs.

The meet­ing also fea­tured a robust dis­cus­sion on rur­al road main­te­nance. Magistrate Ernest Pasley expressed frus­tra­tion with the cur­rent state of the paving list, not­ing that some local pri­or­i­ties — such as Old Beckerville Road — have been neglect­ed for decades.

“It’s been 55 years since they’ve been paved,” Pasley not­ed, sug­gest­ing that the coun­ty use a por­tion of its $745,000 road fund sur­plus to lock in paving con­tracts before mate­r­i­al costs rise further.

The court also approved sev­er­al small­er items, includ­ing a $650 con­tri­bu­tion to the Winchester Soccer Club for a new AED, with the city split­ting the cost to bring the com­plex into statu­to­ry compliance.

Additionally, the court autho­rized a traf­fic study for Beckerville Road fol­low­ing local com­plaints about speed lim­its in devel­op­ing areas.

Judge-Executive RJ Palmer con­clud­ed the ses­sion by inform­ing the court that draft bud­get requests from all depart­ment heads would be dis­trib­uted this week, sig­nal­ing the start of the next fis­cal plan­ning cycle.