Detention Center Director Sara Stenger again brought data and a pay proposal for the Seward County Commissioners to consider at its June 16 meeting, this time leaving with a commitment to raise corrections officers’ pay.
After discussing pay in other counties, the commissioners voted 3-1 to increase the starting wages for new corrections officers to $25 per hour with a 2% across the board increase and a possible 2% merit increase at the end of their first year possible.
Commissioners Darrell Zabrocki, Raegan Hain and Misty Ahmic voted in favor of the action and Commissioner Scott Pekarek voted against it. Commissioner Ken Schmieding was absent.
The change in wages excludes a shift differential change, leaving that at 75 cents per hour for those working night shifts.
Existing corrections officers will also receive an increase in pay to keep the level they are now paid above the starting wage. However, Ahmic said on June 19 that the motion used on June 16 would have to be amended at the next commissioners’ meeting to be accurate for existing employees.
Existing corrections officers will also receive the 2% across the board increase and have the potential for up to another 2% increase based on merit.
Ahmic said at the June 16 meeting that the adopted increase plan would, in the end, be comparable to the $3 per hour increase Stenger had proposed for jail staff.
Stenger offered commissioners starting pay data for Thayer, Richardson, Pawnee, Otoe, Nemaha, Johnson, Jefferson, Gage and Fillmore counties as they had requested.
But she noted that these counties are also preparing for a new budget year and salaries are in negotiations.
“When I look at these comparisons, I see some counties who are smaller than us who hold less people having equal or higher starting pay than Seward County,” Stenger said. “We don’t have a top pay. Our top staff are not coming close to what some of these others are paying.”
Ahmic said she analyzed the data Stenger had earlier included from some larger counties and they averaged about $24 per hour for current starting wages. Looking at the most comparable counties, the average was around $25.
A 2% increase to the $25 wage would add 50 cents per hour.
Ahmic and other commissioners were adamant, however, about the pay increase being directed only to corrections officers.
“I hear what you are saying about the rest of the staff, but the discussion is about the corrections officers and hard-to-fill (positions) at this point,” Ahmic said.
Last December when Stenger sought hiring bonuses for two positions that had been vacant for more than 90 days, she had 14 corrections officers to cover a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week operation. As of June 9, she had only 10.
She had reported the hiring bonuses were not having the impact expected.
Hain noted the need to fill vacant positions and lessen overtime needs before addressing other pay levels.
“We also are going to need to see what this looks like on paper to do this specific increase to try to get people in to fill those current positions,” Hain said.
Zabrocki said the county can only stretch this pay increase so far.
“The thrust of this has to be kind of the understanding on your part that we are dealing with a finite bowl of taxpayers money as we go into this budget scenario, and it is going to be difficult to give everybody what they want,” he said. “It is not going to be so much about what you want, but it’s going to be about what we feel you need in the sense that we can only stretch this so far.”
Pekarek said there is a case for considering corrections officers separately for compensation.
“The knowledge base is different than others,” he said. “Writing reports, there’s a lot of liability in the jail that other departments do not see. I want to be sure we get good quality people.”
He asked Stenger what other obstacles she sees when trying to fill these positions.
Stenger said the pay is appreciated.
“The truth is to keep people here I am having a difficult time holding employees accountable. At this point, when there is disciplinary (action), we can’t give somebody a day off, which is a standard,” she said.
She said morale at the jail has dropped and the workload has not.
“They know we need them more than they need us,” she said. “This is just difficult for us to manage. We are asking them to not make errors, be accountable for their actions and they are working 60 hours.”
Zabrocki noted that the merit increase option may better reflect performance-based rewards.
Pekarek said the county may have to look at things like shift differential pay in other areas of the county, too. He also noted his concern about narrowing the difference in pay between corrections officers and supervisors.
“Are we going to trade one hard-to-fill position for another? Just speaking from experience, being at the same company for 36 years, I have seen that gap narrow and attitudes change,” he said. “Why would I take the additional responsibility and move into that position when I am not going to get paid that much more?”
Hain and Zabrocki said focusing on the corrections officers was a place to start.
The Roads Department has also struggled to hire and retain staff members and has utilized hiring bonuses in recent months.
Ahmic reminded commissioners that this pay action is falling outside of the county’s normal cycle of reviewing pay levels every three years.
“This is not something we usually do,” she said.
