Upshur County elected officials and employees could receive $1,800 pay raises during the next fiscal year, and county officials say the increases are needed.

Commissioners will vote Tuesday whether to raise pay for elected officials. Proposed employee raises are included in the county’s preliminary 2025-26 budget, and commissioners will vote to adopt the new spending plan in the near future.

Upshur County leaders have been working to increase employee pay for about five years. They approved across-the-board raises of $1,200 in fiscal years 2020, 2023, 2024 and 2025. Employees received a $1,000 across-the-board raise in 2022 and stipends of up to $4,500 in 2021 thanks to federal grant money as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

Those raises came after a four-year period in which employee pay wasn’t substantially increased. From 2015 to 2019, employees received an across-the board pay raise of $1,200 in 2018. In 2015, employees received raises of up to $1,200 depending upon their years of service, but commissioners at the time also cut the county’s contributions to employee retirement in half.

So far, employee raises have kept pace with inflation, County Auditor Connie Williams said. The average salary for Upshur County employees is $41,700.

“There are many departments that are exceptionally hard-working and do a fantastic job,” Williams said. “As much as they might like working in Upshur County, if they’re not being paid enough to meet their living expenses, they’re gonna have to find an alternative. It’s important to be competitive, at least with counties of similar size.”

Upshur County Judge Todd Tefteller said he supports increasing employee pay.

“We’re just trying to bring our salary levels up to be competitive with other counties of our population and size because we’ve been lagging behind,” he said.

Tefteller and Williams said they hope the county can afford additional pay raises for employees in the future, but with the ongoing $15.3 million renovation of the courthouse, the county doesn’t have the money for additional raises.

This year’s raises, if approved, will be “moving in the right direction, which will get us close to the median average of counties our size,” Tefteller said. “It’s not gonna be high. That’s for sure. It may be close.”

Among more than 20 Texas counties of similar size, Upshur County has the lowest pay for several of its elected officials, including the county judge, district clerk and sheriff. Elected officials in Upshur County make an average of $25,000 per year less than their counterparts in similarly sized counties, according to data from the Texas Association of Counties.

Upshur County elected officials received a $5,000 pay increase in fiscal year 2023 and a $1,200 increase in fiscal year 2025, though they did not receive the $1,200 raise employees did in fiscal year 2024.

The county also has a smaller tax levy than most similarly sized counties, according to data from the Texas Association of Counties. In 2022, Upshur County’s tax levy, the amount of money to be collected from tax revenue, was $16.6 million, about $10 million less than the average of $26.6 million.

Tuesday’s commissioners court meeting will begin at 10 a.m. at the temporary courthouse at 150 E. Jefferson in downtown Gilmer.