Jail staff pay increase gets final approval

Starting in August, Shawano County Jail corrections officers, sergeants and kitchen staff will be taking home a little more pay.

The Shawano County Board of Supervisors voted 24-2 on July 28 to give the employees a $3 per hour pay raise through 2024, citing it as hazard pay since the money was coming from the American Rescue Plan Act. The county has received $3.9 million from ARPA and is expected to receive a similar amount in 2022, and the hazard pay is expected to take up over $1.16 million of that, about $339,792 for each full year and $143,758 for the remainder of 2021.

The emergency action was taken due to the jail reaching a crisis level with employees. Eleven corrections officers have left the county’s employ in 2021, leaving the county woefully understaffed at a jail where the population has ballooned while inmates were waiting for the circuit court to resume jury trials after the coronavirus pandemic closed down the courts for a period of time.

Shawano County’s starting pay for corrections officers, prior to the increase, was $17.95 per hour, and they could go to Marinette County for $19.94 or Oconto County for $20.57. Staff were also leaving the county for higher-paying jobs in the private sector.

Sheriff Adam Bieber told the board that the county has reached the crisis point it has because it hasn’t been following the recommendations outlined by the consulting firm Carlson Dettman, which did a wage study in 2015, contradicting claims by supervisors in recent months that Carlson Dettman was to blame for county staff wages across the board being so low.

“We just haven’t been following Carlson Dettman,” Bieber said. “We haven’t been giving (employees) pay increases every year like they suggest. That’s why we’re behind.”

Bieber told the board it was on the right path to “stop the bleeding” with the increase, pointing out that other counties have done it. He noted, though, that it would still take some time to recruit people and get the jail staff to its full strength of 36.

“We’re at a point where, if we lose any more people, we will have to ship people out (to other jails),” Bieber said. “That’ll be at a cost of $3,185 per day. Almost $1 million per year we’ll be paying someone else to house our inmates (while still operating the jail).”

Bieber clarified that the county wasn’t losing jail staff to other jails as much as it was the private sector. With jail population high, corrections officers are enduring consistent abuse by inmates.

“It’s not a joy to come to work,” Bieber said. “When you’re getting screamed at, kicked at, spit at, and it’s almost on a daily basis … we’ve got to get them out of our correctional facilities. They need to be in prisons.”

Chief Deputy George Lenzner noted that Shawano County is near the bottom in the state for starting pay for corrections officers, with Ashland County being the only one that pays less.

“Menominee County, their corrections officers make more money now,” Lenzner said.

While the board was near unanimous in its support for jail staff, many supervisors expressed reservations about taking action through ARPA, one-time funds that would run out in 2024. Some described it as a Band-Aid for the issue and suggested something else needed to be done to stop the bleeding.

“What happens when (other counties) raise theirs, as well?” Supervisor Joe Miller said.

Supervisor Richard Ferfecki feared that, if the county doesn’t develop a permanent plan to keep the pay for jail staff on a competitive level, it might lose everyone when the money runs out in three years.

“We got to have a plan in place that we can continue to pay these people a fair wage, and we’ve just got to quit kicking the can down the road,” Ferfecki said.

Supervisor Kathy Luebke suggested an amendment that would only allow the increase through the end of 2022 instead of 2024, requiring the county board to come up with a more permanent solution sooner rather than later. However, Luebke could only find three other supervisors that agreed on the timeline as the amendment failed on a 22-4 vote.

Supervisor Aaron Damrau, who voted against the pay increase along with Supervisor Ken Capelle, suggested that using ARPA funds to solve the jail pay issue was akin to “putting a Band-Aid on a bullethole” and felt there were other avenues that didn’t involve using one-time funds.

“We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity with this funding,” Damrau said. “Our infrastructure — our broadband infrastructure — is completely lacking. I live in the least-populated district in the county, and my constituents can’t get internet because it’s not profitable.”

County Board Chairman Tom Kautza pointed out that many jails in the state are having difficulty in recruiting and retaining employees.

“We’re not alone in the problem,” Kautza said. “Oconto (County) said that they’ve lost three in the last couple of weeks. Marinette County, they’re managing to hold their own and not having a big turnover rate, but they also put in a program where they give (jail employees) extra money beyond their pay, but they keep that, and you don’t get paid that unless you’re there at the end of that year.”

lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com