And today's starting salary is ...

We are not sure how much the Fayette County commissioners (or at least two of them) are paying Felice Associates of Greensburg for the work done by Dominick Carnicella as the county's director of human resources.

But we are sure that it is either way too much, or not quite enough, based on the ever-changing salaries of the county's two most recent hires.

In a saga that officially dates back to April 17, and includes at least two commission meetings and two salary board meetings, the salary for the new county chief clerk has changed three times, and the salary for the new public works director will apparently change at least once.

For the chief clerk's job, which went to former HeraldStandard.com county government reporter Amy Revak, the starting salary was initially stated as $32,064. Then, with Carnicella in the lead, an attempt was made to raise it to $34,600, a hike of $2,537, based on the budget-related duties of the job.

When public scrutiny over English major Revak's qualifications was applied to the situation, Carnicella stepped up in defense of the hire, saying that the budget-related component of the job was only about 20 percent of its overall duties.

Fair enough. But Carnicella had just gotten done supporting a big increase in the starting salary, on the grounds that the very skills that he ended up downgrading were a key component of the job.

Then, at yesteday's commission meeting, Commissioners Vincent Zapotosky and Al Ambrosini approved a $667 raise for Revak anyway. Here is a paragraph from the Tribune-Review story http://triblive.com/news/fayette/1804065-74/revak-commissioners-approved-county-job-carson-public-salary-board-hire :

There was a discrepancy in the salaries of Revak and Carson. A $32,063 salary for Revak, previously approved by the salary board, was incorrect, and commissioners revised it to $32,740.

Carson is the new public works director. Carnicella seems to have fumbled the ball on this one, too, based on this paragraph from the aforementioned story:

The salary board approved Carson's salary at $40,331. County Controller Sean Lally said that could change to $41,145, because the salary board did not take into account that Carson will work a 40-hour week, rather than 37 hours.

Carson could end up getting $814 more because of this error.

Shouldn't a competent human resources director know right off the bat whether a job requires 37 or 40 hours of work per week? Isn't it reasonable to think that he or she should find that out and make that clear to decision-makers, such as the county commissioners or the salary board, in the course of 30 days?

Shouldn't the same professional know what the starting salary of the chief clerk should be, based on the duties of the job when the job notice was officially posted? Should it really be changing three times if someone really knows what they are doing?

Instead of inspiring confidence in the process, we are left with the impression that starting salaries in Fayette County are being picked out of someone's hat.