ALLENTOWN, Pa. - On Tuesday morning, Lehigh County Executive Phil Armstrong vetoed a pair of bills that would have raised the salaries of a number of county officers in the coming years, including his own.
The veto didn’t last 24 hours.
On Tuesday evening — with votes of 8-to-1 and 7-to-2 — Lehigh County's Board of Commissioners undid those vetoes.
Only one commissioner, Ron Beitler, voted against reapproving both bills.
Commissioner Geoff Brace joined Beitler in opposing the pay hike for county executive.
- Lehigh County Board of Commissioners have reapproved a pair of bills to provide pay hikes to row officers and the county executive
- These incremental increases eventually will provide municipal officials with near six-figure salaries
- In vetoing the bills, county Executive Phil Armstrong said he couldn't approve them "in good conscience"
Commissioner Bob Elbich argued in favor of approving the bills, saying the row officers—the clerk of judicial records, county sheriff, coroner and controller, as well as the county executive—deserve the increases, as they are positions of authority that demand a high level of responsibility.
“Partially because of the past errors of other boards that never took into account the cost of living and so on and so forth. And the amount of work that the row officers take on. We are in a position with this bill to try and take care of some of those past errors,” Elbich said.
Elbich, however argued that, while the bills are a move to correct “past errors,” they don’t completely address them.
“The row officers will still be compensated at a lesser level than their subordinates,” he said.
In his original veto of the bills, Armstrong said the raises are expected to cost taxpayers about 25 cents each once they go into effect.
“I cannot in good conscience sign onto these two pieces of legislation,” Armstrong said, in announcing the vetoes.
The bills will raise salaries for the row positions to nearly $100,000 each by 2027. The salaries for the roles currently are about $73,000 a year. But Elbich said taxpayers won’t see any impact in next year’s budget.
“The county can absorb these changes without having to affect our tax base,” Elbich said.
Row officers' incremental raises would not go into effect until the beginning of 2024.
Also, with the reapproval of the county executive’s pay hike, the salary for this office will incrementally increase to more than $123,000 a year by 2029.
But that won’t begin until 2026.
In defending the pay hike reapproval, Elbich said that by the time the county executive’s increase goes into effect, there will have been a 16-year gap since the last time the office’s compensation was increased.
“It’s darn near about time we did something about this,” Elbich said.
