Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
DAVENPORT—Another round of negotiations between Lincoln County and Teamsters 690, which represents the Sheriff’s Office’s commissioned and non-commissioned officers, sparked a discussion concerning compensation for the non-commissioned jail and dispatch staff.
The non-commissioned staff, which have been seeking a 3% raise that the county says isn’t financially feasible, were represented by Brad Sweet, Joe Kuhn and Taj Wilkerson. Gabe Gants represented the commissioned officers.
County prosecutor Adam Walser, who has been the county’s mouthpiece throughout open public negotiations, said the jail and dispatch staff are already compensated fairly and above most of their county peers. Sweet countered the opposite, saying they’re not compensated enough because unlike most counties, non-commissioned officers have to due both jail and dispatch duties.
Kuhn conceded that the talk of comparing jail and dispatch salaries to other counties is difficult to make as Walser said Sweet’s claim wasn’t an apples-to-apples comparison based on the fact most counties don’t have jail and dispatch staff performing both jobs.
“The budget is tight with the jail and dispatch salaries as it is,” Walser said. “Giving raises could lead to some potentially tough decisions.”
Sweet responded by saying a bigger cost would come if the jail and dispatch staff were to split.
“That would be a lot more expensive than giving people who do both raises,” he said.
Commissioner Rob Coffman also brought up the county’s budget amidst talk of compensation. He said the county is seeing a 20% increase in cost of insurance at the jail, which he said equates to about $150,000.
“Our revenue from the jail is only at a third of where it should be for this time of year,” Coffman said. “We’ve got less prisoners coming in.”
Sweet brought up cost of living, saying salary increases will be necessary to keep up with rising prices. Coffman said that “unfortunately, the revenue doesn’t keep up” to make that a reality.
The commissioned officers meeting included discussions of certifying deputies to conduct child interviews, as currently, Gants is the only officer with that certification. A discussion concerning medical coverage was also held, with Kuhn noting that the demographics between commissioned and non-commissioned officers regarding coverage is different because more deputies have families than jail/dispatch staff.
For the first time in negotiations, the Teamsters took a sidebar and left the room to talk amongst themselves, which was a condition of the two sides’ agreements to negotiate publicly for the first time in five years.
The negotiations didn’t end in an agreement, and the next round of talks was scheduled for Nov. 8.
Drew Lawson is the editor of the Davenport Times. He is a graduate of Eastern Washington University.
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