Funding of Constitutional Officers - Virginia Joint Legislative Audit ...

Workload standards should accomplish two goals. The first goal
is to measure the staff needs of Offices to meet their statutory
mandates. When Officers perform duties beyond these basic statutory
mandates, they should not benefit from this election. Secondly,
when statutes allow Officers several alternatives to meet their
responsibilities, the standards should serve as a Statewide measure
of performance to distribute positions. We believe ~he staff's
development of standards does not meet either of these goals.
The Board has undertaken the development of workload standards
over the past three years after discussions with and assistance of
constitutional officer associations. We recognize the difficulty in
setting Statewide standards, but believe this is a more equitable
method. The Board wishes to advise the Commission that the use of
standard workload measures may cost the Commonwealth additional
funding. Since workload standards are a primary par~ of funding,
localities will move functions into these Offices under the
standards developed by the staff. As in our example, if
re-assessment is part of the locality's funding base then the
Assessor's Offices funded directly by the locality will be moved to
the Commissioner's Office.
As an alternative to JLARC
Board suggests the following:
recommendation (1), the Compensation
The General Assembly may wish to consider requiring the
Compensation Board to develop staffing standards for
constitutional officers, and require that the Compensation
Board consider these standards prior to allocating additional
positions. The Standards should be based on measurable
statutory required duties. In developing the standards, the
Compensation Board should allow for participation and input
of the constitutional officers and their associations.
Recommendation (2).
The General Assembly may wish to establish a statewide average
staff salary for each constitutional office for use in determining
the costs recognized for State funding.
WE DISAGREE. The compensation Board has established uniform
salary scales for all positions in all constitutional offices. Job
classifications, pay grades and salary steps were developed in
cooperation with the Department of Personnel and Training some years
ago. This results in, for example, the salary of a deputy sheriff
in Lee County with 2 years experience being reimbursed by the
Compensation Board at the same amount as a deputy sheriff in
Gloucester County. Perhaps more importantly, it results in 2
employees in the same office having identical experience and
assigned duties receiving the same rate of pay.
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