Manatee County gets swallowed up in raise-gate

A brouhaha bellowed in Manatee County recently, when the seven county commissioners faced a thorny question: to accept or reject a state-mandated $272 raise, which would bump each commissioner's annual salary to $75,079.

Part of the issue — and this can only happen in government — is it actually would cost more than $272 for commissioners to outright reject the raise. That's because some of the raise was already paid, so county staff would need to redo local record and Internal Revenue Service paperwork, according to the county clerk's office.

The .3% raise stems from a state law that calculates salary adjustments every year for constitutional officers based on factors that include population and the consumer price index.