MOULTRIE — Salary increases beyond cost-of-living adjustments for some county employees were put to rest this week when Colquitt County Commission members refused to take up the issue again.

Several commissioners said at the beginning of a Thursday meeting, which was later closed to the public, that they thought that commission would revisit the elimination of across-the-board 3-percent merit increases.

In drafting the budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1, commissioners eliminated the proposed 3-percent merit increase for all county workers, but retained a 3-percent cost-of-living increase.

That move cut approximately $40,000 from the county’s $17 million general government budget approved earlier this month and $27,000 from the $1.5 million garbage enterprise fund budget.

The reasons given for eliminating the merit raises is that the county faced the loss of $330,000 in tax revenues due to agricultural equipment taken off the tax rolls, a $281,000 increase in health insurance costs, state-mandated salary increases for constitutional officers and a growing disparity between lower-wage earners and those at the top.

Commissioners agreed to a study in the fall to examine the salary issue and expect to have recommendations as early as late 2001.

The pay raise proposal discussed Thursday was only for a few employees, Commissioner Luke Strong said during a Friday interview.

“There were only six or eight on the list,” he said. “I was disappointed. I thought we as a board were going to talk about across-the-board, not individual, salaries. My thing was if we’re not going to discuss all salaries, I’m not going to discuss individual salaries.”

Before the meeting was closed, several other commissioners also said they thought that the merit increases for all employees would be on the table.

Commission Chairman Max Hancock said that the across-the-board increase was a “dead issue” as far as he was concerned. Hancock said the purpose was to discuss individual salaries that were recommended in the original proposed budget.

“I was under the impression we were going to go back and include the 3-percent merit raises,” Strong said. “That’s what we all said we thought it was.”