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Sheriff’s office details contract costs: Indian Trail pays for 90% of 38 assigned positions
Summary
Sheriff’s finance administrator told council that Indian Trail’s contract now covers 38 assigned positions (26 deputies), a single-deputy fully loaded cost near $128,000 for new requests, and proposed education/military incentives would be shared under the town’s 90/10 agreement with the county.
Dorothy Thomas, the sheriff’s public safety finance administrator, presented the history and cost structure of Indian Trail’s contract with the Union County Sheriff’s Office, telling council the town’s assigned complement has grown from two deputies in 1997 to 38 assigned positions today.
Thomas said the town’s FY26 cost for the division is roughly $5.2 million (the town pays 90% under the contract model). She explained the county calculates deputy salary averages using a snapshot of wages across all town contracts and that the town’s county-calculated average yields an estimated per‑deputy fully loaded cost of about $128,000 if the town were to request a new deputy position. "If we were to request a new deputy... we're going to add that 128,000 to the salary costs," Thomas said.
On starting pay and recruitment, Thomas said the sheriff’s office now recruits with a starting salary "just over $61,000" for candidates with no experience and lateral hires with law‑enforcement experience can start around $78,700. She described county recruitment and incentive proposals under consideration (education and military incentives) and explained how those incentives would affect the town’s share under the 90/10 split: "It's still the 90/10. Everything is on the 90/10. So we would be responsible for 3600." (example for a $4,000 education incentive).
Council members asked whether towns also pay for SROs and administrative overhead. Thomas clarified that the county covers SROs and many central administrative costs (human resources, onboarding), and she emphasized towns receive added capacity from countywide units (SRT, CSI) that can respond to incidents outside of the town’s assigned personnel. She also cited Indian Trail’s average response time of 6 minutes, 51 seconds compared with county patrol squad averages that ranged higher.
Thomas said there were no new deputy requests for Indian Trail in FY27 and that the sheriff’s office was asking county commissioners only to authorize incentive pay countywide.
