Politics & Government

County Executive Vetoes Raises for Sheriff's Deputies

Steve Ehlmann vetoes a part of the bill as he adopts the 2012 St. Charles County Budget.

St. Charles County Executive Steve Ehlmann vetoed part of the 2012 budget which would have given some Sheriff's Deputies a one-time salary increase.

“We have budgeted salary increases of 1 percent across the board for most County employees and another 2 percent for those with good employee reviews,” Ehlmann said in a press release. “This includes the Sheriff’s Department personnel. What I am against is providing more money only for the deputies.”

Deputies who had been with the department for 120 months would have received $1,250 one-time raise. The raise was approved by the St. Charles County Council on a 4-2 vote on Dec. 19. Five Council Members would have to approve an override of the veto.

Find out what's happening in St. Charleswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Councilman Joe Cronin, R-St. Paul, pushed for the increase, which he called a Band-Aid.

“I will vote for it because I think it’s the step in the right direction,” Cronin said. “I think there’s a pay issue. And I think it needs to be addressed better than this. When you’re paying (deputies) 10 to 20 percent at the sheriff department less than comparable departments of similar size of the county, that’s not fair to those guys.”

Find out what's happening in St. Charleswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In his veto message to the County Council, Ehlmann said:

"While those who Would receive this proposed raise are deserving, so are most other county employees. All county employees are affected by 'compression' in the salary schedule, the result of which is that employees with considerably more experience are making only slightly more than new hires.

In the remainder of the budget which I have signed, two-thirds of the revenue available for additional compensation begins to address this problem for all county employees, including sheriff deputies.

Four years ago, this administration instituted an Education Attainment program, under which licensed law enforcement officers received additional compensation upon the attainment of certain educational milestones. Such educational experiences better prepare the deputies to withstand the scrutiny of their acts of authority for which the county is potentially liable. Under the same theory, licensed law enforcement officers in other county departments are being added
to the program in the 2012 Budget.

Otherwise, this administration has proposed treating all employees equally when it comes to increases in compensation. When it acquiesced in a budget four years ago which gave sheriff deputies an additional two percent raise, it did so only as a compromise with a County Council proposal that sought to go much further. Over the following two years, all employees received raises to bring them up to the minimum salary identified by an independent pay study. The 2010 Budget provided a one-time payment to reimburse deputy sheriffs for inadequacies in uniform allowances in previous years. Last year, when Sheriff Tom Neer offered to provide Drug Enforcement Funds to avoid furloughs in his department, the administration agreed only after other elected officials agreed to do likewise for their employees, thus assuring all county employees would benefit equally.

Due largely to the efforts of Sheriff Neer, on December 21, 2011, the county was approved for a grant of $65,332 from the State Deputy Sheriff Salary Supplementation Fund to address the compression issue for January through June 2012. This grant program, funded by a $10 surcharge on civil service of process, was established by the state for the purpose of addressing
salaries of deputy sheriffs. Under the grant, St. Charles County deputies with less than five years of experience will receive increased compensation, while those with over five years of experience will receive a greater increase.

Salary and compression issues are not limited to deputy sheriffs. As you can see from attached Exhibit A, other employees have received, and will continue to receive, significantly lower percentage increases under the Amended Budget. Turnover was a problem, not only in the Sheriff’s Department, but throughout this government in 2007. Since that year, turnover rates, depicted in Exhibit B, have declined significantly for the county as a whole, and even more so for law enforcement. When the Deputy Sheriff Salary Supplementation Fund grant expires on July first, we will know exactly how much revenue we will be receiving from schools for resource officers and whether the Deputy Sheriff Salary Supplementation grant will be renewed.

At that time, we will also know how revenues have come in for the first half of the year. Hopefully, by that time we can have a plan for further addressing the compression issue for all the county employees."


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

More from St. Charles