Top Knox leaders in line for raises

Knox County employees and local school teachers won’t get pay raises this year, but 17 of the county’s highest paid elected officials and administrators will.

However, they didn’t ask for them, and there’s not much they can do about it.

The salary increases are pretty much state mandated and automatically factored into their paychecks, starting tomorrow, the first day of the new fiscal year.

“I believe I’m paid too much as it is and I’ve said that before,” Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett told WBIR 10News on Monday. “I’m paid an exorbitant amount of money and I realize that.”

HERE'S THE LIST

The mayor, who will get an almost $2,500 bump this year, said for decades various officials and organizations would lobby the state Legislature each year, asking for pay raises.

The General Assembly in 2002 eventually enacted a number of statutes that set minimum levels of compensation for officials based on a number of factors, including population size, whether state employees received raises, and the Consumer Price Index, or CPI, which measures changes in price levels of consumer goods and services.

The statutes affect the entire state, so officeholders and executives in all 95 counties are expected to get automatic raises this year.

For Knox County that means 17 officials will receive increases between $2,480 and $4,843, or about 1.5 percent to 3.3 percent.

The total combined cost? Almost $57,200.

Those leaders include, the mayor, law director, administrator of elections, circuit court clerk, criminal court clerk, clerk and mastery of chancery and probate court, county clerk, property assessor, register of deeds, sheriff, trustee, a juvenile court judge and five general sessions court judges.

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