Wage increase for deputies wins backing as Sheriff's Office struggles with staffing

A Milwaukee County Board committee is recommending wage increases for members of the Milwaukee Deputy Sheriffs’ Association as the agency wrestles with deficit-induced overtime and poor staff retention and recruitment.

In a 5-1 vote, supervisors approved a tentative one-year agreement between the county and the association that could see wages for all members of the bargaining unit increase by 3%, with some higher-ranking sheriff deputies increased by 5.5%. The association represents deputies and sergeants.

Supervisor Juan Miguel Martinez voted against the proposal during a finance committee meeting Thursday.

If approved by the full County Board later this month, the wage increases would be effective May 26 and the calculated fiscal impact would total about $780,000 in 2024, according to a report from the Office of the Comptroller's Financial Services Director, Cynthia CJ Pahl.

Earlier this month, the Sheriff's Office reported a deficit of $5.5 million, primarily due to overtime spending to backfill shifts, according to a 2024 fiscal projection from the comptroller.

The 2024 adopted budget assumed a pay increase for all members of the deputy sheriff's association of 2%, which began on Jan. 1.

The current hourly range for a deputy sheriff is between $32.79 and $41.05. For a deputy sheriff sergeant position the hourly range is between $38.60 and $45.18.

The new raises backed Thursday would come on top of that pay increase.

This comes after years of concerns flagged by the association about staffing retention and recruitment, which Chief Deputy Daniel Hughes echoed to supervisors during the meeting.

"We have been down so many people for so long," Hughes said. "We're still having to do all these training and backfills. So, it's a very complex problem. It's a problem that's going to take some time to address."

"I can't reinforce enough how delicate the operation is to try to right this ship," he said. "When somebody calls in or somebody's off or somebody's out for whatever reason that position has to be filled and it has to be filled by a body and that body right now has to be overtime, because that's how our system is set up."

Both the association's current and former presidents — Carlos Bruno and Frederick Gladney — previously sounded alarms, calling the agency a "sinking ship" and one that was "still sinking and is going to continue to sink" as forced overtime, burnout and a mass staff exodus hit the agency in recent years.

In early April, Bruno told the Journal Sentinel that the Sheriff's Office has seen the departure of 44 deputies due to resignations, terminations and deferred retirement in just over the last year.

A 2023 review of the County Jail division showed severe understaffing, with the agency relying heavily on mandated overtime to fill shifts and plug staffing gaps. Bruno said that between 20 and 23 deputies were also called on to relieve staffing shortages at that time.

In October, the review reported that there were a total of 41,943 mandated overtime hours — roughly 155 hours on average daily.

And these struggles persist.

Of the 229 authorized correctional officers, the agency currently has 199 filled positions — 187 of them available for work as the remaining few are not working due to injury, illness or using the Family and Medical Leave Act, according to Hughes.

"Both sides, including the sworn deputies and correction officers, are not coming to work anymore. They're calling in sick and they're using FMLA, because they can't deal with the stress and the environment they're working (in)," Bruno previously told the Journal Sentinel.

As of mid-May, 23 background checks are in progress, 30 officers are in training, 21 onboarding officers are in jailor certification training, and nine officers in new orientation field training, according to James Burnett, the spokesman for the Sheriff's Office.

Burnett said that the office is actively recruiting with periodic "real-time" hiring events.

The County Board is set to vote on the agreement on May 23.

Contact Vanessa Swales at 414-308-5881 or vswales@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @Vanessa_Swales.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee County committee backs wage increase for sheriff deputies