Bartholomew County officials are looking for a pay hike for the county’s IT workers.

The county has had trouble competing with the private sector for information technology professionals and will consider bumping the top of the pay scale for the IT director up to more than $90,000.

Last week, County Commissioners President Rick Flohr said that the position is vacant now after the previous director resigned. The county has had trouble holding onto qualified professionals because they can easily find jobs paying two to three times as much in the private sector, Flohr said.

And the county’s IT infrastructure is extremly important, especially for law enforcement and the court system. Recent outages led to disruptions in the ability of county deputies and city police being able to receive information in their patrol cars that they needed for calls and for county judges to access court records.

The County Commissioners are asking the County Council to approve a higher pay range of up to $92,000 for the county’s IT director, so they can begin the search for a replacement. But Flohr conceded that the county may face a pay range closer to $100,000 to get the person they need. A pay scale increase that large would raise the pay to about $30,000 more than earlier directors.

Commissioners are also seeking job description that could allow higher pay for the few remaining people in the county IT department. In the meanwhile, the few remaining county employees are on call around the clock and former employees are now contracting with the county to keep vital systems operating, such as on election night.

Commissioners are proposing paying for the pay increase from the county’s telecommunications fund.

County Council is scheduled to hear the requests at its meeting at 6 p.m. tomorrow at the county governmental office building on Third Street in Columbus.