County agencies need more money for pay raises, department representatives said during budget hearings with the Natrona County Board of Commissioners on Thursday.

Bob Harrington of the City of Casper-Natrona County Health department said he's asking for a larger salary budget for the 2009 fiscal year because of recent cost of living studies. Harrington added that the cost of living in Natrona County has risen significantly over the last year.

Losing employees to other, higher-paying jobs is also an issue for county departments. With jobs requiring little education or experience paying high salaries to recruit workers in the Casper area, department heads requested merit raises for their valuable employees.

Harrington indicated that he hoped the budget would allow him to grant performance-based raises in addition to cost of living raises.

"I'm a really strong believer in the idea that just because two people hold the same job title and do the same functioning, they don't necessarily deserve the same compensation," he said. "If someone is performing exceptionally, we need to compensate them."

Harrington's proposed budget increased from $1.1 million to $1.6 million.

The county assessor's office asked for an increased budget, giving at least 5 percent cost of living raises to its employees and merit raises starting at 2 percent.

County Clerk Renea Vitto said she wants to give everyone in her office salary raises, as well. Vitto proposed to increase her overall salary budget by 9.4 percent from last fiscal year.

Gen Tuma, clerk of district court, was worried about additional funding for the guardian ad litem program, but also wanted to make sure the commissioners paid attention to her budget salary line item.

"It's easier for me to do an across the board raise, but I looked at what I thought people needed for merit raises," Tuma said. "We were so dreadfully low. So it came up pretty substantially."

Contact reporter Megan Lee at (307) 266-0589 or megan.lee@trib.com