May 12, 2019
By: Dwayne Page
The workload of the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Department is on the rise and to keep up with it Sheriff Patrick Ray and the budget committee of the county commission have reached a compromise in providing more manpower to meet the demands of courtroom security and other needs.
During a meeting Wednesday night, the committee voted to fund in the 2019-20 budget two new officer positions solely from a proposed new litigation tax through the General Sessions Court budget. One other new deputy position would be created and funded by the county through the sheriff’s department budget. And while no new positions would be added to the jail budget, the sheriff plans to promote two existing correctional officers to the rank of corporal as jail supervisors. Each one would get a $2,000 increase in pay under the existing wage scale for sheriff’s department employees for a total of $4,000. The move keeps the sheriff’s department compliant with standards for around the clock jail supervision under standards of the Tennessee Corrections Institute.
Sheriff Ray’s original proposal for the county to fund five new positions was determined to be too costly and the committee rejected the sheriff’s department budget 3-2 at a previous meeting.
The proposed litigation tax through the court system is expected to generate around $125,000 in new revenue which is more than enough to fund the two deputy positions expected to cost $79,020 in salaries plus matching benefits.
“In that budget (General Sessions Court) we are proposing to fund two security officers for the courtrooms and they will be deputy sheriffs under the direction of Sheriff Ray. One of those will be absolutely designated as security for the courtrooms and the other will be a security/deputy where he (Sheriff) can use at his discretion. Those two employees would be funded under the General Sessions budget and they would be employed by the sheriff’s department,” said Dennis Slager, Chairman of the Budget Committee.
When court is not in session, the new officers can be used as road deputies, to cover shifts as fill-ins for other officers who are off duty or on vacation, to transport prisoners to other facilities, etc.
In his revised budget proposal, Sheriff Ray said he trimmed his request for an increase in gasoline by $10,000 and utilities by $3,000 but while projections for overtime is the same next year at $95,000 as this year, Slager asked why it should be that much with more manpower being added to the department and given that actual overtime in the department for 2018 was $66,517.
Sheriff Ray explained that while all of the budgeted funds for overtime may not be used, it is primarily for times when officers are called in to cover shifts of others in training and for officers who are scheduled to work holidays. They get double time on the holidays they work.
Slager also has concerns with sheriff’s department employee pay increases being tied to the sheriff’s raises as approved by the county commission last year. Slager asked that the budget committee consider recommending to the county commission a freeze of those wages for a year. Giving raises in this manner, Slager said not only impacts the tier system (wage scale) but isn’t fair to other county employees.
“We don’t have the money to fund those pay raises and we didn’t have it last year. We have no (new) revenue to cover it,” said Slager.
“The other county official’s employees are separate from us (sheriff’s department employees). They get raises over 20 years under a 13 tier wage scale while we have a 6 tier scale over 8 years. I don’t think it would be fair to knock us out (step pay raises) and everybody else get theirs,” said Sheriff Ray.
The sheriff also explained that other county employees had been given raises at a percentage of their employers for a while until those employers (county officials) complained that it wasn’t fair because the County Mayor’s employees were getting more money than their workers. Based on those complaints, the county commission dropped that plan and adopted the wage scale for them under which the county now operates.
The budget committee voted 4 to 1 to adopt the revised sheriff’s department/jail budget as presented with no freeze in employee wages. Committee members Jeff Barnes, Sabrina Farler, Anita Puckett, and Jerry Adock voted in favor while Chairman Dennis Slager voted no.
The sheriff’s department’s budget of $1,905,447 and the Jail budget of $1,531,067 will now be presented to the county commission for final approval later this summer.