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Sheriff urges five-year schedule for contracts, warns hours should rise as Swisher grows
Summary
Swisher's sheriff told the council the department's incident-report numbers and criminal charges are roughly flat but warned growth will increase demand. He recommended a five‑year contract schedule and modest hourly increases to help towns and the sheriff budget in sync.
The sheriff told the Swisher City Council on Sept. 23 that the department is proposing a multiyear approach to town contracts to help both the county and municipalities plan budgets as the town grows. "As you know from the past, I like to do this earlier in the fall and talk about the contract," he said, framing a proposal for a five‑year schedule that fixes rates and hours for planning purposes.
The sheriff explained how the department tracks activity, distinguishing calls for service from ICRs, incident numbers assigned when an incident generates a written report. He said the town's total ICRs were down by six year over year and criminal charges were down by five, while traffic stops increased — partly tied to extra activity on Wednesday nights. "Calls are really helpful ... if you wanna know kind of the actual criminal activity you see, we get that from the ICR number," he said.
On costs, the sheriff said towns historically pay a share that covers most but not all deputy expenses and noted rising labor costs from union negotiations. He said the current figures now cover about 86% of salary and benefits for a deputy and argued incremental hourly increases would help close the gap. "By going up to $4 an hour here only actually has about a 1% increase on that offset on our end," he said, adding that the union negotiated 4% for this year and 5% for next. He also offered a per‑hour figure for context: "The actual salary and benefit per hour for the 7‑year deputy sheriff is $61 an hour."
Councilmembers asked whether it would be more cost‑effective to add dedicated local hours rather than rely on reserve deputies for busy nights. The sheriff cautioned that assigning a deputy locally for a fixed shift could create overtime or reduce coverage for the rest of the patrol area: deputies cover multiple towns and the rural area, and an assigned local shift makes that deputy unavailable elsewhere.
The sheriff recommended that Swisher move slowly to increase contracted hours and adopt a multiyear schedule so both the town and county can plan revenue and staffing. He said the intergovernmental agreement is being updated into a formal IGA and that the council would see a resolution on the next agenda; no vote was required at the meeting. The chair thanked the sheriff for the report, and the council moved on to other agenda items.
