Westmoreland Commissioner Kopas calls for cap on raises for elected county officials

Westmoreland Commissioner Ted Kopas on Tuesday proposed capping annual raises awarded to county elected officials.

Kopas, a Democrat who took office at the beginning of August, pitched a revision to a county ordinance approved nearly two decades ago that guarantees yearly cost-of-living pay hikes to commissioners and row officers based on regional consumer price indexes that, over the past two years, have totaled more than 13%.

“We need to repeal and replace the ordinance that allowed that to happen,” Kopas said. “While still tying salaries to a cost-of-living increase, it should be capped at no more than 2.5% in any year. We need to make sure that no commissioner, present or future, receives such an obscene raise ever again. We owe it to those who pay our salaries.”

At the start of 2023, commissioners and other county elected officials received 7.8% raises. For commissioners, that raise totaled more than $7,000 this year. Commissioners Chairman Sean Kertes earns $95,616. Commissioners Doug Chew and Kopas receive receive annual salaries of $92,210 in 2023.

Elected officials received 5.6% cost-of-living increases in 2022.

Commissioners authorized similar percentage raises for about 400 nonunion employees, but, for a majority of unionized county workers, or about 1,200 employees, subject to negotiated collective bargaining contracts received annual raises averaging between 2% to 3%.

“The 2.5% raises (for elected officials) represents a number that respects inflation every year. In reality, over a four-year term, that’s a 10% raise, and that’s a pretty good contract,” Kopas said. “It also respects our union folks who are bound by collective bargaining.”

Kertes could not be reached Tuesday for comment.

Chew, in a text message exchange, called Kopas’ proposal “election-year pandering” and said, over the past four years, raises for county elected officials averaged just 3.8%.

Westmoreland’s elected officials received 1.95% raises in 2020 and no pay hikes in 2021.

“Ted had more than two terms as a commissioner, and prior years as a county employee, to understand the concepts where he could have changed this ordinance if he were truly concerned about the taxpayer. Moreover, he accepted every one of those raises in his 10-plus years at the county,” Chew said.

Kopas was appointed to his seat on the commission after this summer’s resignation of Democrat Gina Cerilli Thrasher. Kopas previously served two full terms as a county commissioner and left office after he was defeated in the 2019 election. He, along with Democrat Lisa Gephart and Republicans Kertes and Chew, are seeking three seats on the board in November’s general election.

Annual raises for Westmoreland County’s elected officials were instituted in 1997.

Commissioners adopted the ordinance that tied annual pay hikes to regional economic conditions determined by the regional Consumer Price Index that is calculated by the U.S. Department of Labor. That index takes into account average consumer spending differences over the previous 12 months for food, shelter, energy and other cost of living expenses in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland.

As a result, some years saw no raises for elected officials, while others were moderate pay hikes. In the past two years, the increases were significant.