Key administrators of the Umatilla County Sheriff’s Office will receive big pay boosts come Jan. 1.
But they still will not make as much as their counterparts in city police departments.
Even Sheriff Terry Rowan makes less than city police chiefs. Rowan said the disparity can be a problem when it comes to recruiting and retaining officers.
The county board of commissioners Wednesday granted a request from the sheriff’s office to give six sergeants and four lieutenants a bump of three pay grades. Pay for the sergeants increases from $4,849 a month to $5,078, and for lieutenants from $5,422 a month to $5,609, according to county counsel Doug Olsen.
The raises were smaller than what his office asked for, but Rowan said every move toward pay parity with other agencies matters.
According to public records the East Oregonian obtained during the past two weeks, city police lieutenants and captains in Hermiston and Pendleton make about $93,500 a year. City police sergeants also fare better. County sergeants will have an annual salary closer to $61,000 starting next year. Milton-Freewater’s three police sergeants have an average salary of almost $63,400, while Hermiston’s four sergeants each have a salary of more than $81,000 a year.
Rowan makes about $87,000 a year as sheriff and undersheriff Jim Littlefield makes about $80,000, according to public records from the county.
Hermiston police Chief Jason Edmiston makes $105,560, Pendleton police Chief Stuart Roberts make $102,924 a year, and Doug Boedigheimer, the police chief of Milton-Freewater, makes more than $106,000 annually. Roberts said his pay was up this year because he is overseeing management of both the police and fire departments.
Rowan said the there’s no way to get a real apples-to-apples comparison between a sheriff’s office and a city police department. State laws and rules mandate sheriff’s offices must have a search and rescue unit, for example, while city police have no such demand. Likewise, the sheriff’s office has to operate jails as well as civil divisions that process gun permits and serve court notices.
The county sheriff is also an elected position in Oregon, while police chiefs are hired.
Rowan said the last time the sheriff’s administrators received a comparable increase was in 2009. Since then, he said, administrators generally have received slight pay increases — 1 percent or less — to try and keep up with unionized employees who typically receive raises of 2 or 3 percent a year.
The sheriff’s office has a total budget of about $10.97 million, and more than $8 million is for personnel. Rowan said the sheriff’s office has been tracking its revenue for the past several years and found through grants and good practices it stays under budget.
“So what we’re trying to do is take advantage of those revenue overages and not affect the general fund,” he said.
The county board also changed the rank of Sterrin Holcomb, head of the sheriff’s civil division, from sergeant to lieutenant, giving her the same rank as criminal division head Dave Williamson, emergency communications manager Kathy Lieuallen and jail commander Stewart Harp.
Umatilla County Commissioner Bill Elfering said the sheriff’s office met with him in March to discuss the pay schedule. Elfering said they showed information that employee were not just getting paid less than other local police, but it paid less than similar-sized Oregon counties. Elfering also said there was no doubt the lower pay was a hurdle when hiring. And while there will not be another raise this year, the county will look at the issue in the future.
“It’s just one of those things we have to approach as the time is right,” he said.
He also said the pay raises as a whole come to about $70,000 a year, and that is less than what it costs to pay salary and benefits for a new full-time employee.
Rowan said employees may like where they work, but if the paycheck does not help them obtain their goals, they will go elsewhere. He said he thinks county decision makers understand the significance of pay parity.
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Contact Phil Wright at pwright@eastoregonian.com or 541-966-0833.
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