County looks at hiking bailiff pay by 25%

Proposal plans on eliminating meals and mileage reimbursement
By: 
Lee Pulaski
City Editor

Shawano County Clerk of Courts Ethan Schmidt is looking at increasing the hourly pay for bailiffs who work in courtrooms during jury trials, which are starting to take place again.

Schmidt told the county’s public safety committee on July 7 that he’s seeking to up the current pay of $10 per hour to $12.50 per hour. However, the courts also plan to eliminate paying mileage and for meals for those bailiffs.

Schmidt said the county is looking at not providing jurors a meal as a cost-cutting measure, so it made sense to do so for the bailiffs, as well. Jurors are paid $25 for a full day of jury duty and $13 for a half day.

“With the mileage, it’s a hassle for (the) finance (department) to get the mileage tracked and get that to be paid out,” Schmidt said.

He noted that Forest County is currently the only other county paying mileage to jurors, and Forest and Langlade counties are the only ones providing meals to jurors.

“Looking at other counties, I thought $12.50 (for bailiffs) was a good ballpark figure to put us at compared to the other counties,” Schmidt said.

He said that the most mileage the county is having to pay for a bailiff is 20 miles round-trip, as most of the bailiffs live in close proximity to the courthouse. The county started paying bailiffs mileage in 1991, according to Schmidt, but state law only requires the courthouse to pay mileage for jurors, not for bailiffs.

The committee was hesitant to approve the changes because Schmidt did not have a cost analysis on how the pay increase, combined with not providing meals and mileage reimbursement, would impact the county’s budget. It opted to wait until August for approval, once the costs are more hammered out.

Schmidt said currently $6,000 is budgeted for bailiffs, which hasn’t been tapped into much for 2021 as jury trials were on hold until June due to the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on personal distancing. He said that budget could go up.

“It’s going to depend on how many jury trials we have this year,” Schmidt said. “We have two (bailiffs) per jury trial. Right now, we’ve had three days of jury trials started, but all of them were settled so we didn’t need a jury trial.”

Supervisor Theresa Serrano said she was in favor of increasing the pay to $12.50 per hour, but she feels the bailiffs should receive mileage and meals, as well.

Supervisor Tom Kautza said he would prefer to see how much the county is dishing out for mileage to see if the pay raise would make a difference. Schmidt said the mileage is low for bailiffs now, but if someone wanting to be a bailiff comes from the western part of the county, that could be a factor.

Schmidt has had two people recently reach out with an interest in being a bailiff, including a retired sheriff’s deputy. He said he currently has a rotation of 15 bailiffs that he utilizes whenever jury trials take place.

“Some only do it during the summer months when they’re here,” Schmidt said.


lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com