President's Message - January/February 2000

Omnibus Pay Bill Finally Reaches Goal

It was a long, hard, tiresome road -- but we finally reached the destination. At midnight on March 9, 2000 the long-awaited, much-debated, given-up-for-dead omnibus pay bill became law. Ending more than five years of legislative work that would have -- to borrow an old phrase -- tried even the patience of Job.

The 2000 version of the "omnibus" pay bill was the first general bill to pass the Alabama Legislature this year. That fact alone is testimony to the hard work that has been invested in this bill over the years, but the story deserves much more detail than simply stating that fact.

This new law now provides that beginning on Oct. 1, 2001 in most counties in Alabama, the salary of the elected officials will be tied to the salary of the employees in the county the official serves. This change will, over the next decade, pay enormous dividends for county government in our state.

No longer will it be necessary for the other elected officials' groups to propose minimum compensation legislation. And, just as importantly, it will not be necessary for this organization to gear up to defeat the minimum compensation legislation proposed by those groups.

In the future, counties that have enough money to increase the salaries of their employees, will be the counties that also give increases to the elected officials. And in those counties where financial constraints prevent the granting of employee raises, the elected officials will be treated in like manner.

Looking back on this five-year journey, the concept seems so logical that one has to wonder why it took so long to pass. The answer seems to lie in two elements that took a long time to develop and which lined up in beautiful fashion during the first portion of the 2000 regular session -- education and consensus.

First of all, the legislation -- with its different population brackets for the purpose of determining compensation and the confusing provisions necessary to treat all officials fairly -- is not easy to read or to understand. During the first two years of the effort, much of the lobbying effort was focused on educating the legislators and calming their fears about the public reaction to the legislation.

This educational process was not quick enough to suit some of those involved, but it was necessary. The effort seemed to turn the corner during the 1999 regular session. At that time, the questions from legislators turned away from those driven by confusion to a new set of concerns driven mostly by a desire to make sure the bill was acceptable to all concerned. It was then clear that the education process was taking hold.

And secondly, this year's broad-based support for the legislation was "real," which translated to telephone calls and support back home. During the early years of this effort, the elected officials' organizations supported the omnibus legislation -- but sometimes only during the waning days of the session and only after it was rather obvious their individual pay raises would not pass. This lack of "real" support made it very difficult to establish any "real" momentum for the legislation. And without any real momentum, the legislation often lagged behind other less important issues.

In fact, this lack of momentum actually caused some people to question the Association's dedication to this effort. Some whispered -- and later in the process they even said it out loud -- that the legislation was a tool being used by the Association to defeat the proposed pay raises for other elected officials. But nothing could have been farther from the truth.

This Association never wavered in its support of the omnibus pay bill and in its resolve to see the legislation become law. And there were others who also never wavered.

The foremost, of course, is Rep. Steve McMillan who carried this legislation from the very beginning back in 1996. Rep. McMillan made several trips to Montgomery during the interim periods to work on this legislation. He spent countless hours in negotiations and was the person who helped hold the coalition together in the closing days. But he would be the first to tell you that others also deserve credit.

In the Senate, a former opponent of the legislation -- Sen. Gerald Dial -- sponsored the bill in 2000 and keyed its quick passage in the Senate. The chairman of the House Local Government Committee, Rep. Bill Dukes, is another of the key reasons why this bill finally became law. During the last four sessions, he was steady in his support for the omnibus compensation legislation.

He said "no" to those who opposed the legislation in the beginning and worked to convince the opponents to join in this campaign. House Speaker Seth Hammett's willingness to make this bill a priority in the House of Representatives was also a vitally important part of this bill's passage. Moving the bill to the House floor on the fourth legislative day made it much easier to forge, and then keep, a consensus on this legislation.

There are many others to thank -- Sen. Pat Lindsey, Rep. Joe Carothers, Rep. Mike Hill, Sen. Lowell Barron and former Rep. Ralph Burke, among others. But thanks must also be extended to the hundreds of local elected officials around the state. Many of those officials did not embrace the concept back in 1996, but during the last four years they warmed to the idea and, in the end, worked hard toward the bill's passage.

And a special thank-you is expressed to our Association staff members for their hard work, dedication and commitment to finding an innovative solution to an old problem.