The Henry County Board of Commissioners have played some games with this "pay freeze" trick.
Henry County Commissioners salaries are tied in the with the Sheriff. As the Herald article points out, Donald Chaffin is the longest serving sheriff in Henry County history, he has been sheriff for around 20 years. Chaffin, from what I've been told by several different sources, is going to retire in 2008. His current pay is $138,464, when he retires, the pay for the next sheriff will drop by about a quarter. The Henry BOC approached the delegation about locking the pay, and the delegation refused. Again, this is according the article in the Herald.
Previously, the BOC had made this a big deal and was flaunting it to the citizens as some sort of fiscally responsible move. Gerry Adams said, “We got raises because the sheriff got a raise and we didn’t intend to do that." Yeah, yeah...what he and the rest of the commissioners were doing is making sure their pay wouldn't go down when Chaffin retired. That was their motive...not to prevent future pay increases.