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Doña Ana County Sheriff's Office Presents Study Highlighting Low Wages

http://youtu.be/h7PCmHLtIe8

The Doña Ana County Sheriff’s Department is currently struggling to recruit and retain officers in their department. In an effort to highlight some of those struggles the Sheriff’s department presented a salary study to the Doña Ana County Commission.

Doña Ana County Sheriff Enrique “Kiki” Vigil says the main reason they are struggling to recruit and retain officers is wages.

“Salaries are the driving force that enable us to recruit men and women to serve this department,” Vigil said. “And as you know those lagging salaries are the reason we struggle to keep the deputies we have from leaving to other agencies.”

The sheriff’s study showed that for the most part Doña Ana County Sheriff’s officers make less than Las Cruces Police, New Mexico State Police, El Paso Sheriffs, and El Paso Police. County Manager Julia Brown says she doesn’t see the wages as the main factor for recruitment and retention issues.

“We are losing some people,” Brown said. “But, the exit conferences and the exit interviews indicate that there not leaving because of pay, and we know that there are some people that have gone to departments making less money then they were making here, so that tells us that pay was not the concern of those individuals.”

However the study also shows a greater potential for growth in salary in other departments. For example, a patrol officer working with the Sheriff’s office for 20 years makes just about the same as a Las Cruces police patrol officer working for 3 years.

Major Brent Barlow has been with the Sheriff’s office for over 20 years he says the staffing problem is the worst he’s seen.

“I didn’t come here for the money,” Barlow said. “Or I thought I was going to get rich because of that. But I can tell you it’s very disheartening when I look across the street and my counterpart is making 20-25% more than I am doing the exact same job. So, it is disheartening, and I know it’s very disheartening for the deputies. I still make decent money, but I’ve got deputies working here that quite honestly should be on food stamps.”

Ken Roberts, a Doña Ana County Sheriff’s investigator said The Sheriff’s study also showed that the staffing is behind the Department of Justice’s recommendations.

“A fair estimate in the aspect is 1.9 officers, or two officers per thousand,” Roberts said. “Currently I have .67. So, I have half an officer serving that same thousand, or one officer serving 2,000.”

The Sheriff had this study completed after the county presented a salary study completed by Fox Lawson that said the Sheriff’s salaries were comparable in the market. Sheriff Vigil disagrees.

“The County paid $100,000,” Vigil said. “I say $100,000 for a so called fair compensation study that can only be called a complete fabrication of reality. A $100,00 that they spent, tax payers money for erroneous information.”

County Manager Julia Brown says the study is not false.

“I would have to respectfully disagree,” Brown said. “I think that kind of statement, probably, while they believe it to be true actually indicates that they don’t fully understand what the Fox Lawson study looked at, and what it was comparing.”  

She says she doesn’t know if the sheriff’s study really looked at jobs that had the same descriptions in their comparison.

“If you select departments that are the highest paid in the state,” Brown said. “Then naturally you are going to have a bigger disparity if you are looking just at dollars. But the question is what are the job duties, are these the same positions and if not then we are comparing apples to oranges instead of apples to apples.”

According to the Sheriff’s study they looked at the same departments that the Fox Lawson study examined in their study. County Manger Julia Brown says a meeting is scheduled for her office and the Sheriff to discuss the study in more detail.

Samantha Sonner was a multimedia reporter for KRWG- TV/FM.