Over a month since pay increases were approved for current and future Washington County Ambulance Service staff to help retain and attract new employees, a pay increase for the service director was approved Tuesday.

The Washington County Board of Supervisors approved a personnel change request to increase Jeremy Peck’s pay from $42.97 to $48.20 hourly effective November 4th. This brings his salary to $100,256. Supervisor Jack Seward, Jr. explains the delay in approving Peck’s request, as all other personnel change requests were approved a month ago, “There were some questions about a salaried employee, some questions about whether an agreement had to be drafted, some questions about the amount of the pay raise. We took quite a bit of time to talk about the situation, the justification for it and how it was arrived at and this is the thing that we thought was appropriate.”

This pay increase was alongside weeks of discussion of whether the county can pay Peck for 180 hours of work he put in above and beyond his administrator duties during August through October as he was faced with staff shortages. The supervisors held a work session Monday with many department heads to discuss whether exempt employees should be allowed overtime pay. No action has been taken pending guidance from labor attorney Bill Sueppel.