Bunting bloviates on classification/compensation study, offers to do it herself
County Commissioner George Bailey joked with Alma City Manager Aeric Ripley Tuesday, asking him to “Raise your right hand and swear you won't bring a circus to town.” That’s unnecessary, as Commissioner Jan Bunting does her best to turn every county commission meeting into a circus. On Tuesday Bunting joined commissioners Chuck Murphy and Sam Smith in refusing to hire a company to do a classification/compensation study of Gratiot County employees. Experts say studies like this should be done every few years, but Gratiot County hasn’t had one in 20 years. The current environment of job classifications and pay is chaotic for the county’s 140 employees with no system in place to ensure fair compensation across the board. Bunting pooh poohed the importance of such studies and segued into a familiar dishonest rant about how the county has a pile of wind turbine money that it sits on instead of sharing the love with cities, villages, townships, fire departments, etc. Bunting herself wa