Less than eight months after Columbia County bumped up base pay for the lowest paid government employees, the county finds it has a shortage of workers.
In July of last year, the least-paid county workers in Columbia County saw their hourly rate go from $10 to $15. But as of Tuesday, the county had 106 unfilled positions out of 1,400 county jobs.
Many of the vacancies are low-paying positions where workers can sometimes find better paying jobs in retail.
“I call it the Amazon effect,” said Scott Johnson, the Columbia County manager. An Amazon distribution center opened near Interstate 20 in Columbia County in September 2021 and starting hourly wage there is $18 an hour.
Not all of the county’s open jobs are at the lower end of the pay scale. The county’s water department has a deputy director position open that pays $94,000 a year, and the Columbia County Sheriff’s Department has two lieutenant slots open in the detective division that pay nearly $72,000 a year and two uniformed lieutenant jobs that pay nearly $67,000 a year base salary, according to a spreadsheet provided by the county that tracks open jobs.
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Johnson said the low unemployment rate nationally and across Georgia is a big factor in having so many job openings. The other is being selective.
“We don’t scrape the bottom of the barrel,” Johnson said.
Having that many unfilled positions means many county employees have to pick up the extra workload. On Tuesday, Johnson told county commissioners that having so many open jobs had saved the county about $600,000 this year, but that he would propose that a good portion of that savings be passed onto hard-working county workers as merit pay at the end of the year.
Johnson said when the county has had a surplus, managers look through employees’ evaluations and recommend which workers get a merit check. Workers with poor evaluations don’t qualify, he said. The previous checks have ranged from 1% to 3% of annual salary and the county usually distributes the merit pay in December to help people pay for Christmas.
Johnson said Columbia County’s government workforce is smaller than most similar-sized counties in Georgia. This lean staffing allows for the county to afford raised. Since 1990, Columbia County has given county workers a raise every year, he said.
Joshua B. Good is a staff reporter covering Columbia County and military/veterans’ issues for The Augusta Press. Reach him at joshua@theaugustapress.com
