Staffing of corrections officers at the Shawano County Jail and dispatchers with the sheriff’s department continue to be a struggle for county officials, but some are hoping a pay differential for night and weekend work will help them clear the hurdle.
“The surrounding counties all pay a differential, and it’s up to you if you want to keep up with these other counties or if we want to fall back behind like we’ve done in the past,” Sheriff George Lenzner told members of the Shawano County Public Safety Committee on July 10.
Officials are proposing a 50 cents per hour differential for jail corrections officers and dispatchers who work nights and weekends. This would add $30,825 to the annual jail budget and $12,592 to the annual sheriff’s department budget for dispatchers.
Lenzner said he understands the county can’t pay the rates of some other counties, but a small increase can play a role in retaining current employees and attracting new ones.
“Oconto (County) is $2. Another comparable, close county is Langlade. Langlade is at $1 an hour,” said Julie Hasser, human resources director. “The short story is, money needs to be spent.
“On the shift differential, I don’t know that there is any research on the direct correlation that employees will stay because they get it. Employees can leave because nobody else pays it.”
Lenzner said most factories in the area pay a differential.
The shift differential costs are not part of the proposed budgets for the departments, as Troy Beyer, jail administrator, and Lenzner opted to keep it as a separate amendment for discussion by the Executive Committee when they consider all department budgets.
Hasser said she and Jim Davel, administrative coordinator, discussed it and acknowledged a shift differential for corrections and dispatchers could cause a stampede from other departments wanting to include a differential for their staff members, as well.
“If you would decide to go against the shift differential, we still have a turnover issue,” she said. “We still have not enough bodies. You still have a problem that needs to be fixed.
“We have some really great people, and it’s really, really easy for Shawano County employees to jump to a different county.”
Supervisor Randy Young asked whether 50 cents will address the problem.
Communications Supervisor Kasey Cross said one dispatch trainee was released to work on her own July 1 with another in training. There is one open position that saw 32 original applicants but only three who want to continue in the process.
“It is tough to find people that want to give up what we ask them to give up,” she said. “You’re going to work holidays. You’re going to work weekends. You’re going to work overnight. We’re trying to find something to make it a little bit better to work here.”
Lenzner said one great benefit for county employees is the amount of paid time off (PTO) offered, but for the sheriff’s department, that is also a double-edge sword.
“We have minimum staffing,” he said. “We have minimum people in here, so these people have all of these hours of paid time off, and either we can’t let them use it, or when they do use it, we kill our overtime budget because we have to fill their spot when they’re not here.”
He said hiring someone for the sake of filling a position doesn’t work. Hiring an unqualified person results in money spent on training him or her only to have that person quit soon after starting.
Davel suggested the committee look at whether 50 cents an hour is enough to solve the overall staffing problem.
“If you’re going to ask for something from the county board, you ask for what you need to solve your problem,” he said. “I’m not saying this is easy … but we ought to ask for two more positions for the dispatch and two more positions for corrections. Yes, that would be incredibly difficult to fill, but let’s ask for the right thing.”
Lenzner told Davel that department heads were told at the beginning of the year to not ask for any new positions.
“But what I would say is, just like we didn’t expect we were going to be asking for a 50-cent increase after the largest pay raise in Shawano County history … so, we should ask for what’s going to fix the problem.”
Lenzner said he knows how hard it is to convince the county board to add positions.
“When we got one more position in dispatch, the only way they would give it to us is we had to move somebody from the jail into dispatch. That’s the history of getting new positions.”
kpasson@newmedia-wi.com
