Hamilton County commissioners this week scrambled to avoid giving themselves $4,000 raises. But it turns out they’ve been underpaying themselves for 37 years.
At commissioners’ wishes, state Rep. Gerald McCormick, R-Chattanooga, withdrew a bill Thursday that would have removed a 1999 amendment to state law that tied commission pay to the county mayor’s salary.
Gerald McCormick speaks in this file photo.But in fact, the commission not only amended the wrong law in 1991, they’ve been using the same wrong law to set their salaries since the commission was founded in 1978. And they are not the only ones.
The House Fiscal Review Committee determined that if the amendment in Tennessee Code Annotated 5-5-107 were removed, Hamilton County commissioners would be paid under a 1975 law, T.C.A. 8-24-115.
That law says salaries for commissioners in counties with 100,000 to 600,000 residents must be $25,000 or more. That group would include Davidson, Hamilton, Knox and Sullivan counties. Shelby County’s population exceeded the limit in 1970.