I'll lift a couple of paragraphs and comment:
Opat noted that county employees didn’t have a complete pay freeze over the last few years because many received lump-sum bonuses and increases at higher pay scales. The pay-scale step system also provided some annual bumps, he said.
You are right commissioner Opat, while other county's gave their employees raises, Hennepin gave out couple hundred dollar lump sums. Hardly a help with monthly bills.
Freeman, who asked for a 2.5 percent increase, said his office has the lowest starting salary for a first-year assistant county attorney out of the seven metro-area counties. That salary is $52,000, compared to $71,000 for a first-year assistant city attorney in Minneapolis, he said. Anoka and Ramsey counties pay first-year attorneys $52,000 and $58,436 respectively.
A Detention Deputy in Dakota County starts at $19 an hour, in Ramsey County $22 an hour. Hennepin County starting Detention Deputy pay is $17 an hour. The five years of pay freezes Hennpin County inflicted on their employees has caused the pay for the largest, busiest jail in the State to be dead last in pay for the seven county metro-area. Hardly the job of first choice. Ramsey Conty Detention Deputy pay is $31 at five years. Hennepin tops out at $27 in eight years, IF there are no freezes. Currently we have Detention Deputies making $22 an hour after seven years. They could start at Ramsey at that salary.
County Sheriff Richard Stanek echoed Freeman’s issues, saying a large percentage of the more than three dozen dispatchers, deputies and jail clerks who left his office did so because of low wages. He hoped to receive the board’s approval to use an unexpected $500,000 windfall on applications for permits to carry guns to put toward compensation.
My understanding from the Detention Deputy steward who was at the board meeting is that there was no mention of the 18 Detention Deputies who left in 2012-13 for better paying jobs. The number for our Dispatchers who left is 10. Dispatch is running with 37 dispatchers when there are supposed to be 52.
Opat countered that deputy jobs at the sheriff’s office are often entry-level and become a steppingstone for positions at other law enforcement agencies.
Mr. Opat, Detention Deputies sign on to work in the jail. Corrections is not the same thing as police work. Yes, a certain percentage use that job as a stepping stone, but for many of us it is our job.
The current practice of staffing the jail with more Licensed Deputies is a boondoggle. First off it costs the County taxpayer $1,000 a month more to have a Licensed Deputy do a Detention Deputy's job.
Second the over staffing of the jail with Licensed staff has factored into the turnover rate. In 2006 there were 181 Detention Deputies in the jail and 39 Licensed Deputies.. Now there are 142 Detention Deputies and 93 Licensed, remember at $1,000 a month more!
Detention Deputies want to work in the jail. Most of the Licensed staff want out. When there were 39 Licensed Deputies assigned to the jail they could transfer out in 1 to 2 years. Now, with the over staffing it takes 5 to 6 years for them to leave a job they don't want. So many of the Licensed spend their first years looking for a cop job that doesn't make them work in a jail.
The pattern has been to staff the jail with very expensive licensed help that doesn't want to be there, then freeze the pay of Detention staff and Dispatch (who want those jobs) and wonder why people are leaving for better paying jobs in their chosen field.
Maybe the County Board and the Sheriff needs a lesson in economics.
Maybe the County Board and the Sheriff needs a lesson in economics.
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