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Sheriff Stephens seeks raises for deputies

Wood County Sheriff Steve Stephens and Chief Tax Deputy Steve Black appeared before the Wood County Commission on Monday to a budget request for 2018-19. (Photo by Brett Dunlap)

PARKERSBURG — The Wood County Sheriff’s Department is seeking more money to make a deputy’s starting salary comparable with other law-enforcement agencies in the area.

Sheriff Steve Stephens also is seeking approval to use other money to provide a signing bonus to encourage experienced officers to come work for the department.

Elected officials and representatives from the sheriff’s department, the county clerk, the assessor and the county’s IT Sytems/Network Administrator Chris Whittaker appeared before the county commission Monday to discuss budget requests for 2018-2019.

Commission President Blair County said the sheriff’s law-enforcement budget makes up a big part of the county’s overall budget.

”It is our largest budget,” he said.

Stephens when he first came into office, deputies, starting out, were being paid $32,600 a year.

”That is, by far, the lowest rate of anyone one around,” he said.

Last year he was able to cut three administrative positions and use that money to give the deputies a raise to $34,103 starting.

”That is what our current entry level deputy gets,” Stephens said.

Having been in office for over 14 months, Stephens said he has yet to have had a full staff of 36 deputies. He is at 35, but he has some people who will be retiring and changing jobs in the coming months, creating additional vacancies.

During his time in office, the Civil Service exam was given twice to try to get qualified candidates, Stephens said.

Other local departments pay starting officers at better pay than the sheriff’s department can offer new officers with Williamstown offering the best pay for officers, Stephens said.

Also, deputies leaving for better paying jobs is always a possibility, he said.

”If I hire a deputy and in 2-3 years they take the Vienna or Parkersburg test and pass, they can get a $2,500 hiring bonus just being a certified police officer,” Stephens said. ”I can’t compete with that.

”I can’t recruit people, but I can lose people with that.”

They can do bonuses because they don’t have to pay the expense of sending officers to the police academy, Stephens said.

Stephens said he would like to do that, but he needs the commission’s approval to do so. Any such bonus would be at the end of the officer’s one year probation period.

”I have to be able to offer a salary I can compete with,” Stephens said.

The sheriff is asking to increase each deputy’s salary by $2,000.

”That gets us back up to par with just about everybody else,” he said.

The county hoped that a bill that would allow the county to charge a 1 percent sales tax to bring it in line with area municipalities did not pass in the legislature. That would have provided money the county could have looked at hiring more deputies, Couch said.

”I know you are understaffed and you cover 365 miles of territory,” he said to Stephens. ”First and foremost, the obligation of the county commission is for public safety, before everything else.

”We have a duty to fund our sheriff’s department and our prosecutor’s office.”

The sheriff is requesting $1,652,255 for deputies in the coming year compared to $1,542,152 they were budgeted for the 2017-18 fiscal year. Insurance costs, overtime and holiday pay, which are all separate line items, were also increased as a result.

Overall, the sheriff’s budget request for the law enforcement department is $3,904,100 compared to the $3,677,199 for the 2017-18 fiscal year.

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