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Sheriff warns of staffing losses and asks for raises as commissioners debate removing holiday overtime pay
Summary
Sheriff Russell outlined staffing shortages and requested a 10% pay increase for employees; a separate personnel-committee proposal to stop counting holidays as time worked for overtime sparked sharp objections from a commissioner and others.
Sheriff Russell told the First Response Services Committee that the county is losing deputies and corrections staff to neighboring jurisdictions offering substantially higher pay and urged commissioners to consider a 10% raise for departmental employees; the committee also heard heated objections to a personnel-committee proposal to exclude holidays from overtime-calculation, which critics said would reduce take-home pay for already hard-to-retain staff.
Sheriff Russell described recent departures and pay competition: “3 deputies have quit in the last month and a half... The 1 went to Gallup to start out $10 more an hour, and the 1 went to…
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