No Raise, No Resolution: Pay Bump for Deputies Fails in Tied Vote
The Davidson County Commissioners did not approve a 2% pay raise for Davidson County law enforcement officers during its meeting on Thursday.
There was a split vote on a motion made by Commissioner Steve Shell to approve a 2% pay raise for sheriff’s deputies, including sergeants and lieutenants. Commissioner Shell, Todd Yates and Karen Watford voted for the motion, while commissioners Fred McClure, Matt Mizell and Tripp Kester voted against it.
Commissioner Chris Elliott did not attend the meeting, so there was not a majority for the 3 to 3 vote that means the motion failed.
Previously, there was a proposal to include a “slotting” pay increase, which means officers are given compensatory pay for their prior experience in law enforcement. Several of the commissioners stated the sheriff’s department is losing experienced officers because of the lack of slotting pay.
“It’s not that you don’t have a person in the seat, it's that you are losing your experienced deputies,” said Kester. “We just lost a sergeant that was a SWAT team member, patrol sergeant and firearms instructor. You can bring someone in here out of BLET, but you aren’t going to make that (experience) up...It’s a lot more cost effective to retain than retrain.”
The motion for the 2% pay increase including lieutenants and sergeants without slotting pay was $290,000 including benefits. The same raise including slotting pay for lieutenants and sergeants was estimated at $500,000.
Kester said that wasn’t a lot of difference in money to invest in retaining experienced officers, yet the board recently voted to spend $65 million on a sports complex in Southmont.
“You are talking $200,000 to genuinely demonstrate appreciation for what these guys go through and make it right,” said Kester. “You can sit up here and talk about the sports complex that everyone was so riled up about. You’re talking millions of dollars there versus $200,000 to make it right so we can retain these people.”
Other commissioners agreed.
“It’s a small price to pay to right the ship,” said Mizell.
But Davidson County Manager Casey Smith said a lot of these same officers are making considerably more than their base salary in overtime. He said Davidson County is paying approximately $1.2 million a year in overtime, with $765,000 of this going to sworn officers. This is $6,215 in overtime per officer, according to Smith.
He presented the board with several pieces of data which detailed information such as crime statistics, overtime pay, benefits, base pay and per capita staffing levels. He focused on comparing this information with neighboring Rowan County, which according to Smith, is closely comparable to Davidson County based on square mileage, and the number of officers.
He said starting pay in Rowan County is $49,500 and includes $2,600 annually in extra pay for deputies and detention officers but excluded overtime for anyone under the rank of lieutenant. He said starting pay in Davidson County $46,372 but higher-ranking officials were still eligible for overtime pay.
Smith also said that the out-of-pocket expenses for employee family insurance in Davidson County is about $3,000 less a year than Rowan County, which increases how much employees get in their paycheck.
Davidson County Sheriff Richie Simmons said that his department is responsible for more citizens because Rowan County has 10 municipalities that have their own police departments.
He also said many of the duties that incur overtime include civil officers doing traffic control at county schools prior to reporting to serving as bailiffs at the courthouse; transporting inmates to other facilities, after hours animal control calls, involuntary commitment calls, serving court summons and evictions as well as mandatory training.
Simmons said an example is Rowan County only had 39 involuntary commitment calls last year, whereas Davidson County has over 100 in a month.
“We are nowhere near what Rowan County does,” said Simmons. “We are a major populated county, one of the biggest in the state, they’re not. And they are not responsible for as much as Davidson County Sheriff’s department. There’s no comparison.”
Simmons also said overtime has been approved in the annual county budget and is mostly covered from the salaries for unfilled positions. He said you either pay someone overtime or pay the salary to hire someone.
In May, the commissioners approved a 4% plus $500 cost of living increase for all Davidson County employees beginning July 1.
