Halifax County government staff has been tasked with researching and coming up with solutions to improve the starting pay of deputies with the sheriff’s office.
The latest effort to get county deputies in line with surrounding agencies came at the request of Commissioner Patrick Qualls during Monday’s board meeting.
“I am tremendously worried about our sheriff’s department and their inability to get people in there,” Qualls said. “I want to make it clear from the outset this has nothing to do with any of the posts that I deem not to be appropriate on social media. It has to do with the men and the women that protect us and our citizens and in a time that can be scary as we all know. It’s been heavy on my heart.”
The commissioner said the pay at the sheriff’s office is “just not competitive.”
He said his comments were not to be taken as a jab towards county management. “I do think we’re getting to a critical point where it’s unsafe. If we just look at four or five lines of what the starting pay for our surrounding counties and municipalities are, they’re not going to be able to hire anybody.”
Qualls said the board has tasked the sheriff’s office to do a job and in return the county needs “to give them the tools to do it. I do think it’s very, very important. I think if you talk to the sheriff or anyone in that department, they are suffering.”
He said he wants the matter to be looked at separately from the other county departments “because these guys get up every morning and they put a bullet-proof vest on to come and protect you from what’s out there. I feel strongly about that. I want to charge our staff with looking at that and I will work with the department to get some numbers.”
It’s an issue that Qualls said isn’t going away. “I’m going to keep hounding on that because when you call 911 we need them there. If they’re down four people or three people or two people on a shift the outreaching communities that we still govern need them. I want to be able to serve them and say we can serve them.”
Board Chair Vernon Bryant said he believed Qualls was on point with some of the things he discussed. “I would just ask (County Manager Tony) Brown and his staff to just take a look at it in consultation with you and anyone else they need to talk to in the sheriff’s department and we just take it from there.”
Qualls reiterated that he didn’t want his comments to be construed as negative toward Brown or his staff. “This is not about any person. It’s not about me, it’s not about the sheriff, it’s not about any commissioner. This is about protecting our people and protecting those that protect them. I think we need to act on it … This has kind of been long standing and it needs to be addressed.”
Brown said he will work with the human resources department to see what options might be considered.
The county manager said he believes there are things that can possibly be done to address the matter, whether it is additional special pay that doesn’t require changes to the salary structure. “There’s things we can do differently. We just have to investigate to see how appropriate they are.”
The retention issue is across every department, Brown said. “We’ve always had a challenge like getting nurses. Right now we’re hanging on with our EMS. We actually had to go down on one of our 12-hour shifts because we didn’t have enough folks to do the 24-hour shift work.”
Said the county manager: “There’s a challenge in a lot of those areas that are shift work especially but we’ll take a fresh look at it to see what we can do especially with law enforcement because of their challenges as well. Maybe we need to look at all of those and have a special supplemental pay or something along those lines whatever the appropriate option may be. I don’t disagree at all, it's just a matter of what’s the best way to address this. There’s no simple, easy answer.”
Halifax County Sheriff Wes Tripp said today better salaries is something he has been championing since 2013. “Every (law enforcement) agency in Halifax County can pay more than I can start a deputy at.”
The pay issue goes beyond the deputies on the road, Tripp said. “Whoever holds the office of sheriff in the future and now is the highest law enforcement officer in this county because they are elected. The sheriff has the added responsibility of the jail and the security of the courts. No other police chief has those responsibilities.”
A good starting point for salaries is a competitive salary, he said, “so that individuals can be recruited to come to work for the Halifax County Sheriff’s Office. Let’s try to reach a goal where we have no deputies on public assistance.”
A deputy sheriff I position currently advertised by the county shows the hiring range is between $31,270 to $39,595.
Tripp said, however, “As an administrator I can only offer up to step three. Anything four and above must be approved by county management. I want to be competitive with agencies in our service area. This has been my argument since day one when I was appointed in 2013 and was also an advocate while chief deputy under Sheriff Jeff Frazier. For years the deputies' salaries have been atrocious.”
