GREENFIELD — For Sheriff Brad Burkhart, the first step is putting out the fire.

That’s what he told the Hancock County Commissioners Tuesday, May 18, about why they should give an immediate raise to his deputies in the hopes of stopping more employees from leaving the department. But Burkhart was once again told it’s too soon.

County officials say they don’t yet have enough information to move on giving raises to the county’s law enforcement officers, but Burkhart says low pay compared to that of similar positions elsewhere is creating retention issues that will lead to a decrease in services. Tensions were obvious at the commissioners meeting Tuesday; the sheriff and commissioners traded sharp remarks that featured obvious frustration on both sides, raised voices and even some profanity.

“There’s going to need to be a mechanism to increase salaries; there’s going to need to be a mechanism to increase staffing, or we are really, really going to be in a problem,” Burkhart said. “We are borderline there now.”

The county government has been discussing the issue since January, when Burkhart first asked the county commissioners to fund a raise for his deputies. The county government created committees to study the possibility of raises for both sheriff’s deputies and other, non-public safety county employees.

At the time, Burkhart said raising salaries was essentially to retain deputies and recruit new ones. He presented the county with a pay matrix that increased by rank and length of time with the department.

Now, Burkhart says his department is continuing to lose employees. He recently asked the county council to move on an immediate raise for the sheriff’s deputies.

“I don’t think we can wait another 30 days,” he told the county council at its most recent meeting.

The council discussed spending a total of $589,000 in the remainder of this year to increase salaries at both the sheriff’s department and the rest of the county government, with hopes of adding a second raise later on. Of that, $335,000 would go toward the deputies, with the rest distributed among other county departments. The amounts are less than those proposed by the committees but would be considered the first step in an eventual two-step increase.

These raises would have been implemented during the last six months of 2021 and potentially funded, initially, by money from the federal American Rescue Plan. The county’s financial adviser had said the amounts were sustainable over the next few years.

The commissioners, however, still have questions. Commissioner Marc Huber asked Burkhart how the county can be certain raises are sustainable without knowing how many additional deputies he may need to hire in the near future.

“Until you have all the facts, how are we making the decisions?” Huber asked. “We don’t do that at our own house, so why are we all sitting here trying to do it here?”

Burkhart, meanwhile, said it’s impossible to know how many additional deputies will be needed without a concrete idea of how much additional growth will be seen in the county, and what demands will be placed on the sheriff’s department by additional sites like the Amazon and Walmart facilities with a high number of employees.

“Do you know how many businesses are coming in?” Burkhart asked. “…Give me the formula and I’ll be happy to figure it out. I don’t know the formula.”

After a prolonged back-and-forth on the issue, an exasperated Burkhart told Huber he could use an arbitrary number of additional deputies to do the calculations if it would help move the process forward.

Huber emphasized that he is not opposed to the raises, just unsure how the county will fund them sustainably.

Both Burkhart and the commissioners, along with local fire officials, have said part of the problem is that public safety services are being provided at locations like Amazon’s local facility, where tax-increment financing and tax abatements mean the businesses are not contributing to revenue.

“I’ve been sitting here for six months beating my head against the wall trying to figure out how to draw money out of a TIF district to help fund this (stuff),” Huber said.

The issue is related to the complications that come with rapid growth in a community like Hancock County. Industrial development in the western townships of the county and particularly in the Mt. Comfort Corridor has been a triumph for the Hancock Economic Development Council, but it also means large numbers of employees who frequently need county services.

High demand from these facilities, Burkhart said, has “snowballed into other problems.” The sheriff’s department has received complaints from citizens who think it took too long for someone to respond to their 911 calls, including one woman who said she waited 15 minutes for law enforcement to respond to a call about someone breaking into her home.

Burkhart called the development in the area “overgrowth” that public safety can’t keep up with.

“If the growth continues without any relief, what are we going to do?” he said.

Members of the county council were sympathetic to Burkhart’s argument. Jeannine Gray said that as growth continues in the western townships, the eastern part of the county is likely to become a lower priority that receives less timely services. She pointed to tax abatements as part of the issue.

“We’re giving away tax abatements like they’re free candy,” Gray said.

Despite the long discussion at the commissioners’ meeting, no definitive action was taken. Commissioners plan to continue to study the issue, and it will likely come up again at their next meeting.
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