The Greene County Board of Supervisors recently approved wage increases for the sheriff’s office.

At their regular meeting on Monday, the Board approved a $1,000 per month raise for all deputies for the 2024 fiscal year, along with a $500 per month raise for the full time jailers and dispatchers. Sheriff Jack Williams tells Raccoon Valley Radio he’s seen some hard times with finding employees for those positions, some that have been unfulfilled for over one year, but only seeing one application every four months.

“It’s hard to find qualified applicants for these job positions, then just having our local, surrounding PDs (police departments) and sheriff’s offices paying $20,000-$30,000 more than where we were at July 1st (of this year). So adding this at least gets us within $10,000 a year of surrounding community law enforcement agencies. And I’m hoping that maybe it’ll draw in some more applications, because it’s hard to cover 24/7 in dispatch, jail and deputies with three or four people.”      

Supervisor Chair John Muir says the Board felt this situation was getting to a point where potential employees’ decisions were coming down to salaries and by making this kind of an increase will hopefully make the Greene County Sheriff’s Office more competitive, he talks about some of the intangible benefits to increase more interest.

“I’m hoping that the work environment here, and the things that we offer, and the things that Greene County offers as living here are things that will offset dollars some. If we have to get to that same salary against salary there’s a lot of other things that I hope enter into people choosing Greene County over other places.”  

A budget amendment will be needed since the fiscal year started on July 1st, but there is money available to cover the increased cost for the deputies raises to come from rural supplemental and the jailers and dispatchers from general basic. The increases are due to become effective in August.