Elected through Terror

Untitled Part 33

Based on this job description it was determined that the position had the same value as a road deputy. The CO's had a wage scale slightly lower than the road deputies so he was making more than his employees, but not by much.

More importantly, the pay was not adequate considering the responsibility of the position.

My position has always been that each employee is important to the department. Each position has a value to the agency and just because a person's salary is less than someone else's it doesn't mean the latter is more important than the former.

Each person helps the department complete its mission and each person deserves respect regardless of how much money they make.

However, they should be justly compensated for what they do.

I was talking with a reporter one day about the jail. I don't recall how we came about talking about the position of Corrections' Manager, but he was downplaying his position. One of the comments made, was he wasn't making the money a sergeant was and therefore was lesser than the sergeants.

Part of the problem was the person in the position was not very well respected by anyone. Some of it was the wage scale, but most of it was the person himself.

However, it wasn't the person we were evaluating (at that time) but what the position was expected to do. This position was an extremely important position in not just the Sheriff's Office but for the county. If the jail wasn't operated correctly the liability of the county was at stake.

The Correction Manger's position was much more important than depicted. I started, among my other duties, to re-write that description.

I did it for basically two reasons, first, of course, it wasn't even close to being accurate, and second, because it was becoming increasingly obvious to me I was going to have to have a new Corrections Manager and I needed a fair salary (even for the person currently in the position) and to entice someone to apply for the position.

Other Sheriffs were gracious enough to let me use their descriptions which I modified to fit our facility.

I excluded the part about the furnace – we had maintenance personnel that took care of that, it should never have been an issue.

When I was finished I took it before the committee. In my mind I had thought with all things considered the position should at least make as much as a road sergeant. But the committee would draw its own conclusions.

Based on all of the process and formula, the committee placed a wage on the position that was equal to the road sergeants.

There was one difference. It was a managerial position, not a supervisory position, so the position did not receive any overtime. Like the Sheriff and Chief Deputy, he worked until the job was done, even if it took several hours beyond the normal 40 hour work week.

Just one more thought before I continue on, as I write I find that sometimes I have to include some incidents or information that happened later in that first term, which, hopefully ties up some loose ends in my writings.

Somewhere along the line, after I had asked the UnderSheriff/Chief Deputy to resign, instead of having that position, I decided to have two Lieutenants, an Administrative Lt. who watched over the jail among other administrative duties and an operations lieutenant that was in charge of the road deputies and investigations.

For whatever reason it wasn't accepted by the deputies and just didn't work out. After a time I went back to the UnderSheriff/Chief Deputy position and promoted the Administrative Lt., Gary Crow, into that position.

This man was outstanding. Where my skills were weak, his were strong and we made a very good team. Through successions of Corrections Managers, we were even stronger as the three of us would meet on a weekly basis.

A large part of the success of our Office, through the years, can be placed on this man's shoulders. He was a rock and became a good friend.

Meanwhile, there were other issues on the table that first year and the Rajneesh had a former follower that had some accusations we needed to investigate.