ROCKLAND, Maine — The union representing the Knox County Sheriff’s Office deputies has filed a grievance over the county’s rescinding of pay raises granted to the officers.
The grievance was one of two filed last week with the county administrator over the March 15 decision by the Knox County Budget Committee and Knox County commissioners to cap raises at 9 percent, reversing a Dec. 1 vote that granted pay raises in excess of 9 percent to 23 people.
Jack Parlin, a labor specialist with the Fraternal Order of Police which represents the Knox County deputies, said the county and deputies had reached a memorandum of understanding on pay with the county after negotiations. The deputies began receiving the higher pay in their paychecks that were issued at the start of the year.
“When compared to the pay of other sheriff’s departments in Maine, Knox County is on the low end,” Parlin said.
The labor representative said that officers made purchases based on their new pay rate and now they are stuck with the purchases but are receiving lower pay. The lower pay rate was effective in their most recent paychecks.
Parlin said in addition to the grievance filed last week, a complaint will be filed with the Maine Labor Relations Board alleging the county violated labor law. He said a lawsuit is being considered.
A second grievance over the rescinding of the pay hikes was filed last week, although County Administrator Andrew Hart did not specify who filed that complaint.
The original budget approved by the county budget panel, and commissioners awarded raises as high as 40 percent. The raises went to department heads and other nonunion employees as well as the patrol deputies. Those raises followed a pay study commissioned by the county.
The increases, however, were met by a storm of criticism. The opponents challenged the process used by the county to adopt the budget, noting the public notices did not meet the requirements in the charter. That led to another budget hearing and vote on March 15.
At that meeting, the raises were capped at 9 percent for 2012.
If Hart sides with the parties who filed the grievances and reinstitutes the pay raises, the grievance process will be completed. If he rejects the grievances, the next step would be for a hearing before county commissioners.
At the March 15 vote, County Budget Committee member William Jones had commented that rescinding the raises would create new problems.
“We’re in an extremely messy situation,” Jones said.
Hart said he did not know when he would make a decision on the grievances.
Parlin said that the action by the county will cost it money since the county now must pay for legal services to defend taking back pay increases that already had been approved and paid.
too much left out of this to make any sense. were contracts ratified? Who approves the final budget the commission or voters? it appears that there was some public imput and that changed the vote. were there any conditions applied to the Memorandum of Understanding?
“Justice Jeffrey Hjelm ruled March 2 that the sheriff retains responsibility for administering and directing investigations and personnel practices and decisions within her department.”
I don’t see a problem. The Sheriff retains responsibility for administering personnel decisions. That would include administrating pay increases within the paramaters of the budget the County allots to the Sheriff’s department. http://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/statutes/30-a/title30-asec401.html
However, State Statute states: 386. Compensation of deputies
1. Full-time deputies. The county commissioners of each county in which deputies are employed shall set the rate of compensation for deputies employed in the county commissioners’ county. The county treasurers shall pay the compensation, together with those incidental expenses that are necessary for the proper enforcement of the laws.
So, could the judge have legally approved absolute governance, and did he, in fact?
Quoting from an earlier article: Jonathan Berry, “who represented Sheriff Donna Dennison and the Maine Sheriffs Association Berry said that the state law is clear that the county commissioners have the authority to set the budgets for the sheriff’s department and the sheriff must operate within those parameters.”
Give them the raise as agreed upon. They could take a bullet to the chest tomorrow. I have a camp in Knox and will pay a little more for the deputies. This is the countys way of crying because they lost against the Sheriff in court giving her more power. Shame really the backbone of the Sheriffs Office (patrol deputies not desk paper pushers) will suffer.
Knox County is now at the head of the class as far as people starting to use the photocopier for their resume’s going out. Sudden Deputy loss is eventually gonna be seen as one of the last signs that Knox County is going to get that it has a problem. That the grievance process alone has started should be taken as a HUGE warning sign to both the Sheriff and the County Commissioner’s that they now have a serious problem that no amount of political ‘pooh-poohing’ is going to make it go away. All Sheriff Denison and the Commissioner’s have to do is go look at those Agency’s that have tried to do the same thing they are (make believe it’s going to go away on it’s own) and they are gonna be in for a rude awakening. Massive manpower turnover due to a lack of support by the Sheriff or Chief is a guaranteed way for the Agency to start falling apart. And once that start’s , well, there’s is no stopping the eventual ‘suicide spiral’ of the Agency. The National Sheriff’s Association alone can show the Sheriff and the Commissioner’s that not supporting their Deputy’s is gonna cost them a lot more than they can ever anticiapte. And whoever is advising the Sheriff and the Commissioner’s that their Deputy’s are ‘stuck’ professonally and can’t go anywhere else because of budget problem’s had better think again, hard ! Out west there are any number of Sheriff’s Office’s and Highway Patrol’s, in Nevada and Wyoming among other’s, that are both hiring and establishing register’s right now for this summer.
Lincoln had the same problem and then their new Chief decided to start standing up for his people. Viola ! Suddenly Lincoln starts clearing a lot more case’s and their officer-loss rate starts dropping off. Chief Lawrence has seen the light. Now, when and will Knox County do the same ? Only time will tell.
lets get something straight, bdn keeps reporting this as a “pay raise” and like everyone knows, you can’t believe everything you read. these are not “pay raises”. the reporters put this spin on it because it sells papers and gets people fired up. this is the second year that knox county has gone with 0% pay raises. what they did do was look at everyones salary range with the study that they paid good money for. and no you can’t just do this with the internet people. it was a very complex study which compared knox county employees against the other 15 counties and compared clerical with similiar positions in the private sector. what it found is taht some employees were being paid adequately and some were underpaid based on their job descriptions and experience. what the county it trying to do is pay people what their worth as to retain the good employees they have and attract the best possible canidates when there are openings. if the next county over is paying $2 more an hour for same position where do you think that person is going to apply? this is the problem that knox county has faced for several years and they finally decided to do something about it. there is only one employee(ema director) who recieved a 40% pay adjustment, the average was around 10%. the reason that Mr. Sisk recieved was was the public perceives as a high “pay raise” is because he was so grossly underpaid to begin with. if anyone were to look at his background (training & experience) and what he is responsible for then every level headed person would say that he deserves every bit of that pay adjustment. if knox county had addressed this issue a few years ago then they would not be so far behind their counterparts. to the credit of Andy Hart and the commissioners they made the decision to implement what they paid for with the compensation study. a few members of the public didn’t like this and the budget committee made it political instead of logical. what the members of the public should care about is that the county kept the 2012 budget increase at a measley 0.16% increase. thats not even 1/4 of a % increase and the only thing that really matters is the bottom line. citizens who are worried about the ever increasing tax bills should address the largest portion of them. does every kindergartener need a damn laptop? really? lets start cutting the bs in every school budget and really make a dent in the tax bill.
Wage and classification a good tool used effectively. But if the broad based tax base for all 16 counties was used in this case it can skew the data. What has to be done is that you have to look at where you are hiring from and narrow the assessment down to what fits the demographics best as far as comparisons. Example the tax base in Cumberland county is much larger than in Knox. So what other counties have a similar mix to Knox and then narrow it down accordingly. Much to peoples beleif there are wide disparities in pay and benefits and this is a fair tool to use to assessss this application.
At a time when peoples’ wages are frozen or wages are cut, people are losing their jobs and struggling, these raises felt like a slap in the face to many of us in Knox County who are paying our taxes and struggling to make ends meet. The Commissioners and the Sheriff have lost touch with the people of Knox County. Perhaps it is time for some new blood in these positions. Something I hope the Commissioners and the Sheriff considers before giving away taxpayer money to their employees.