Commissioners approve 2 percent raise for sheriff's deputies without including experience pay
The Davidson County Commissioner's finally came to an agreement over giving law enforcement officers a pay raise. During the meeting on Monday, the commissioners unanimously voted to approve a 2% pay raise for sheriff’s deputies and correctional officers, but the motion did not include compensation for prior experience.
This was the second time a vote of a possible pay raise for sheriff’s deputies, including sergeants and lieutenants, was up for consideration, after a motion to approve the 2% pay raise without “slotting” pay increases based on prior law enforcement experience failed in July.
Commissioner Matt Mizell said he requested the issue to be revisited, considering most commissioners had agreed on the 2% raise, but differed on the issue of slotting pay. He said there was only about a $190,000 difference between the 2% raise for deputies and correctional officers and adding the slotting pay.
A 2% raise for deputies, detectives and detention officers including sergeants and lieutenants without slotting was estimated at $287,228 a year with benefits. The 2% raise for this group including slotting was approximately $480,477 with benefits, according Mizell.
"All I’m asking is that we go a step further than the 2% and expand this to include the experience adjustment,” said Mizell.
Commissioner Tripp Kester originally made a motion for the 2% raise for deputies, including sergeants and lieutenants, and correctional officials and the slotting pay.
But after heated discussions where it became evident the motion would fail, Kester withdrew that motion and made a motion for the 2% raise without slotting pay. That motion passed.
Commissioner Chris Elliott recused himself from the vote, citing the fact that his daughter is the DARE representative for North Carolina and works closely with the sheriff’s department. He said he didn’t want it to be considered a conflict of interest.
Board chairman Todd Yates questioned Mizell about whether these experienced officers knew what their salary would be when they were hired. Mizell responded they would have known their salary, but a 2022 pay study increase included experience pay for new hires but did not include slotting pay for existing deputies.
“They would have to leave here, go somewhere else and then get rehired in Davidson County to get the slotting pay,” said Mizell.
Yates also questioned the increase in the budget for the sheriff’s department over the past several years.
Davidson County Manager Casey Smith said in 2015, the county budget was $125.3 million, and the sheriff's department budget was $15.8 million. The recently approved county 2025 - 2026 budget was $178.7 million and the sheriff’s budget was $29 million of that, which was an 89% overall increase, according to Smith.
He added that the department has also seen an approximate 8% growth each year, including adding more SRO officers, additional jail staff, updated equipment and purchasing new vehicles.
Smith said the issue isn’t the 2% across the board raise, it was that every employee has a different level of experience, which made it difficult to project overall costs for slotting pay.
“You've got a lot of sub issues coming out of this one big issue,” said Smith. “Slotting gets to be even more complicated, complex and nuanced when you start looking at it like that.”
Yates said some of these slotting raises were as high as $10,000 or $8,000. He also said if you did slotting pay for one department, the other departments would expect it as well.
“If we were to open this up to all county employees, we would be talking millions of dollars.” said Yates.
Several other commissioners agreed with him, while others pressed the fact that the department is losing experienced sheriff’s deputies because of lack of pay.
“I don’t believe the slotting plan is a good idea,” said Commissioner Karen Watford. “I still think there is a valid argument about the (other) departments...not receiving the same type of opportunities. And trying to be as equitable as we possibly can has kind of been our philosophy for years on how we treat our employees.”
Mizell said he believed the board has always been supportive of enforcement, and since the difference between the two plans was less than $200,000 it would be wise to begin to address the issue of paying officers for their prior experience, as they would be if they were a new hire.
“I thought we might as well tackle the slotting piece when the difference was so small. That is where I was coming from,” said Mizell.
In May, the commissioners approved a 4% plus $500 cost of living increase for all Davidson County employees beginning July 1.
