VIROQUA, Wis. – Following a lengthy discussion the Vernon County Public Safety Committee at their August meeting decided to reverse an earlier decision to lower the chief deputy sheriff salary from 92,469 to about $78,000. Currently the chief deputy salary is about $5,000 more than the sheriff. How the county ended up in the position of paying the sheriff less than the chief deputy has a long and winding history.
Until 2005 the Vernon County Sheriff’s Office had a sheriff and under-sheriff arrangement. Under that system the sheriff was elected and the under-sheriff was political appointee. Salaries for both positions were set by the Vernon County Board, and those salaries had to be set prior to an election, so the candidates running knew what the salary was prior to being elected. By 2005 Vernon County was the last county in the state to have that arrangement.
In 2005 the county voted to create chief deputy that would go through the normal hiring process and was not appointed by the sheriff. But when the position was created it was not placed on the wage scale like other employees and was increased along with the other elected positions like the sheriff, and the wage began to fall behind comparable positions in other counties. To remedy that situation, in 2016 the county voted to put the chief deputy salary on the wage scale, which meant it would be increased at regular intervals without the need to get board approval. The end result of that change was the chief deputy wage went up according the wage scale but the sheriff wage only saw increases when the county increased wages for elected officials. Sheriff’s wage increases were intermittent, and the chief deputy wage quickly surpassed the sheriff’s wage.
As the result of disciplinary action regarding the chief deputy, County Supervisor Mary Henry began to look into the wage discrepancy between the chief deputy and sheriff, and discovered that the resolution in 2005 that switched the county from under-sheriff to chief deputy stated that the chief deputy wage was to be set at 90 percent of the sheriff. Henry brought the issue to the Public Safety Committee in June, and the committee voted to reduce the chief deputy wage to 90 percent of sheriff salary, or about $78,978. You can read our previous story on that meeting and discussion here.
The issue was then sent to the General Government Committee because that is the home committee for the human resources department. But the General Government Committee discovered the resolution from 2016 that superseded the 2005 resolution. The 2016 resolution put the chief deputy wage on the pay scale in an attempt to make sure it did not fall behind other salaries. Given the new information about the other resolution the General Government Committee sent the issue to the Public Safety Committee. You can read about the General Government Committee discussion here.
At the August 14 Public Safety Committee meeting the discussion centered on which resolution to follow, the original resolution that created the position and set the pay and 90 percent of the sheriff, or the 2016 resolution that allowed for regular increases.
Committee Chair Will Beitlich said he felt the 2016 resolution was reviewed and approved and that resolution needed to be followed.
“Hearing how the salary got where it did and that’s legitimate, the position is something that the sheriff would like to keep intact, so as a committee I’m guessing, as chairman, I would say that’s the route we’re on,” said Beitlich. “I’m not for changing that.”
Supervisor Henry said she had talked with some of the people involved in creating the 2005 resolution and the intent of that resolution was to always have the sheriff be the top paid position in the department.
“Whatever the sheriff wants is what this committee needs to support,” said Henry “I will go back to the original intent that it was supposed to be when that resolution was made. 10 percent less than the sheriff. I still strongly believe that the sheriff should have the highest pay, and that you couldn’t look into the future enough to see when it was put on the wage scale this was going to create an issue.”
“I have a very hard time because of the amount of responsibility that is on a sheriff and what they do,” Henry continued. “It should be the highest paid in my opinion. I think if you ask taxpayers in their opinion, that’s what they believe now. This position isn’t being singled out. It just came to light under some different circumstances that led up to this. I don’t believe as a committee we fully understood or the board where this was sitting, and it’s not your job to tell us, it’s our job. And I have followed through with that job and found out we have a discrepancy here. And there is an issue. I strongly feel that we need to go back to their original intent of the resolution that it goes back to 10 percent of the sheriff. This position was created to have continuity and it was never intended to be paid more than the sheriff.”
Beitlich again pointed out the 2016 resolution superseded the 2005 resolution and said the salaries will be reviewed again when it is time to review the sheriff’s salary, prior to the next election. The discussion then turned to whether the sheriff’s wage was considered in a recent wage study that compared Vernon County wages to other comparable county’s. Elected officials are not normally included in those studies.
“It certainly doesn’t seem fair,” said Supervisor Frank Easterday. “That position shouldn’t be over the sheriff’s position. He should be the highest paid in our law enforcement in my mind. I think it was a mistake back when whatever happened.”
Sheriff Torgerson said there are four other elected positions that will have their wage reviewed in the near future and he intends to sit in on those discussions to learn more about the process. Beitlich said he had been a part of previous committees that discussed the sheriff wage and Vernon County was trying to stay competitive with surrounding counties.
“I don’t know now where it’s at,” said Beitlich. “I haven’t been on that committee for a while but I’m sure it’ll be worked on.”
“What does that mean?” asked Easterday.
“That is stays as it is,” said Beitlich. “Are we in agreement on that?”
“No,” said Henry. “I’m sorry, I’m not.”
“I don’t know we’re in a position to say it’s not correct as a mistake,” said Supervisor Charles Jacobson. “Because it isn’t a mistake. It was their information at the time. So my opinion is it should just stay as is with the understanding that when the election term comes up next time, that the sheriff (salary) is appropriately set according to the information we have now with the wage scale.”
Henry said part of the problem is the loss of information due the high rate of turnover for staff and committees.
“There is so much history and there’s been so much turnover that that history has gotten lost,” said Henry. “It really has. All the players in that original time aren’t even here anymore. And personnel has changed. Everything has changed. That history has been lost of how that original position was created and that’s why I looked into it. Because I just could not believe the position was paying more than the sheriff. That’s just wrong. I’m sorry, you can agree with me or disagree. It’s wrong and how it came about is because the loss in history, and just the high change over that we have. And we can make it correct and then these wages are coming. They are coming up, but it’s it’s like it’s it’s always going to be an issue. I agree they’re both very valuable positions.
“Chief deputy sometimes is doing almost more than the sheriff on certain things,” said Easterday. “But yeah, it just seems wrong that that position as chief deputy is worth more than the sheriff. It don’t seem right to me and it don’t feel right.”
“That resolution (2005) never would have passed if people could have foreseen that,” said Henry. “There’s no way. There is no way, and I talked to the authors of it and the people in place at that time that was not the intent you have to go back to what the intent was, and that’s not part of it.”
“Well I think it was good,” said Easterday. “It just kind of got out of control in the numbers. It wasn’t anybody who was doing it for any advantage to any one person or anything like that, it just, so when the numbers came out and now we’re looking back at it like maybe it wasn’t exactly the way we would have liked it to pan out.”
“I think everybody makes the best decision they can with the information that they have at the time,” said Henry.” “You can’t foresee that everybody’s gonna get a two percent increase and then a lane, and then a wage study. You’re looking into the future and those what ifs. We’re here, we have the concrete numbers, and now we already know what’s happening. It’s not going to go back. We can correct a mistake with the information and the pieces of evidence that we have that supports a resolution to get it back to the intent of when that position was created. I’m not saying me individually. I’m saying the position.”
“I have a problem with the word intent,” said Jacobson. “Because unless the people who actually are here, that did that, they’re the only ones that know what their intent was. We can assume, but that’s just what it is. To me the bigger issue was, you know the chief deputies positions on the pay scale. They know what their raises were going to be. When they set the sheriff’s raise, I think that’s where the mistake was made.”
Jacobson suggested looking into revising the system to adjust sheriff’s wages every four years and making changes to make sure those salaries keep pace with the market.
“I mean, those things need to be built in to protect the sheriff and to make sure people want to run, or that knowing that, they’re going to be compensated appropriately,” said Jacobson.
Current Chief Deputy Nathan Campbell told the committee the way to correct the discrepancy in wages was to increase the sheriff’s pay, not reduce the chief deputy wage.
“I disagree with Mary that any action to reduce my wage is singling this position out,” said Campbell. “And it is discrimination. All right? Very much so. It is discriminatory towards the position. I do not disagree that the sheriff’s position should be paid at a higher rate. 100 percent. But lowering the chief deputy rate to try to make up for the wrong for the position, and not the increase, is not sending a good message to the employees of this county. All right? There are roughly six other positions in the same pay grade as the chief deputy position. All right? It’s not worth that?”
The committee then discussed if a motion could be made given that the agenda item was listed as discussion only. It was decided no action could be taken and wages for all positions will remain unchanged, leaving the chief deputy position the highest paid in the department.
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