Davis County sheriff asks to restore deputy positions and raise uniform allowance amid steep attrition

Davis County Sheriff Kimberly Sparks pressed the county Budget Committee to restore lost positions and increase pay-related supports during a budget briefing at the Edmond Building in Farmington.

Sparks told the committee the sheriff’s office has lost 75 deputies over three years — "In 2023, 24 of our sworn deputies left the sheriff's office. In 2024, we lost 9 deputies. And so far this year, we've had 22 deputies who have resigned" — and said the county has spent about $16,000 to train each new deputy, totaling more than $1,000,000 in the last three years to address attrition.

Those losses, the sheriff said, translate into operational strain across patrol, corrections and dispatch. "Our patrol division handles over 51 calls for service every day and they conduct about another 21 traffic stops every day," Sparks said. She also gave figures for other units: detectives worked more than 500 criminal cases last year; court security screened almost 120,000 people; the dispatch center handled about 380 emergency 9-1-1 calls per day; and the county jail books roughly 21 arrestees and…