In a prepared statement read at the end of the Barton County Commission meeting Monday morning, Commission Chairman Don Cates said he felt obligated to respond to remarks made by fellow Commissioner Homer Kruckenberg.
It was in last Thursday’s Great Bend Tribune that a letter to the editor from Kruckenberg appeared. Kruckenberg referenced action taken at the Dec. 30 meeting at which a 25-cent-per-hour pay increase for most county employees was approved.
The 2014 Barton County Operating Budget included the raise. The increase also involved elected officials and county commissioners. 
“In the interest of full public disclosure, I tender this addendum to the Tribune’s Dec. 31 coverage of the Barton County Commission meeting of Dec. 30,” Kruckenberg wrote. “The Tribune noted that the commission “approved a 25-cent-per-hour increase for ‘most’ (my emphasis) county employees, including elected officials and county commissioners.
“To my mind, it ought be noted that there was an exception to the adjective ‘most.’ The commission also approved an increase of $2.99 per hour for register of deeds. For the public record, I want it known that I did not approve this $2.99/hour increase that totals over $6,000/year,” Kruckenberg concluded.
 In his statement Monday, Cates said he happened upon Kruckenberg’s letter.
“One of the things I admire about Homer is his ability to say a lot with a few words,” Cates said. “I know I usually take a lot of words to say a little. However there are times, such as this one, in which using too few words can lead to a lack of understanding of the whole situation.”
First, Cates said he didn’t feel it is proper to single out an individual elected official for a cut in pay based on our opinion of that person or how much relevant experience we feel that person has. “I feel it is our job to establish a salary for each ‘position.’ The public then votes to determine ‘who’ they want to fill that position.”
Then, he said, the voters can decide who is best qualified based upon all the factors they feel are relevant, including experience. All the Commissioners are paid the same salary, for example, even though there is a wide range of experience among them.
“When the present register of deeds took office in 2013, we quickly reduced the pay for that position by nearly $5,000 from what she rightly anticipated it would be when she ran for the office,” Cates said. In November of 2013 she requested the commission adjust her pay.
“After considerable discussion, we approved a new pay rate for that position beginning in 2014,” Cates said. That rate was based upon taking the 2012 pay rate and adding the 2 percent increase that was given across the board in 2013, and the $.25 increase that was given across the board for 2014.
An additional 36 cents per hour was included as well. With all these increases, it will take until the last six months of the register’s eighth year in office to make up for the $5,000 lost in 2013, he said. “I feel that is reasonable and fair.”
 Cates also noted the commission included an additional increase to some positions within the Barton County Sheriff’s Office as well, based upon a study that indicated they were underpaid and in consideration of the high turnover rate the department has experienced in those positions.