Deputies Quit Dive, Swat Teams Action Comes In Protest Of Salary Stalemate
Kootenai County sheriff’s deputies declared Thursday they no longer will provide a dive rescue team, SWAT team or hostage negotiators.
The stand comes after three years of battling with Kootenai County commissioners for better pay, consistent raises and compensation for hazardous duty.
“I don’t want to do this, but enough is enough,” said Sgt. Brad Maskell, dive team leader. “It’s difficult to put your life on the line with no career plan, nothing to protect you when you’ve got your own family to protect.”
About 20 deputies resigned from the units. That means there will be no divers to search for drowning victims and no specially trained deputies to tackle emergencies such as an armed suspect barricaded in a house, said Sgt. Dan Soumas, president of the Kootenai County Deputy Sheriffs’ Association.
Deputies are prevented by law from going on strike. Their resignations are from voluntary positions for which they are not paid extra unless they work overtime. They still will perform their regular duties, Soumas said.
The deputies association organized the resignations and is asking county commissioners for $450,000 in raises.
Commissioners said Thursday that while they plan to pay the deputies more, “there’s just no way, ever, that we can do what they want us to do,” said Chairman Dick Compton. “We can’t afford it. They’re not going to pressure us into it.”
In the past, sheriff’s deputies received pay raises based largely on seniority. But In 1992 the commissioners changed the county pay system. Under the new system, it’s unclear to employees how and when they move up the pay scale.
Deputy Andy Boyle, a member of the dive rescue team and SWAT team, has worked at the Sheriff’s Department for five years and makes $12.07 an hour. That’s more than a dollar short of what his peers make in similar jobs around the region.
The deputy association’s proposal would raise his pay to $14.99 an hour.
Commissioners have set aside about $560,000 for pay increases across the county. Between $200,000 and $250,000 was to go to the Sheriff’s Department for the volunteer programs and for raises, Compton said.
“We’re trying to be empathetic to both the deputies and taxpayers, who have said they’ve had enough,” Compton said.
Soumas said the offer was too low and would cheat other county employees out of decent raises.
“We realize property taxes are a big issue, but we end up consistently taking the short end of this thing so politicians can stand up and say, ‘We didn’t raise taxes,”’ Soumas said.
What the deputies are seeking translates to about a $10 per year tax increase for a resident with a $100,000 home, he said.
Soumas insists low pay already costs taxpayers more and leaves citizens with inexperienced officers. After the county spends thousands of dollars to train the deputies, many leave to work at other departments where they can make up to $15,000 more a year.
More than half the patrol officers have been at the department for two years or less, he said.
Maskell admits it’s a hard stand to make.
“I have a horrible moral problem with not having a dive team,” he said Thursday, two days after searching for a possible drowning victim. But, “We have to take a stand somehow.”
, DataTimes