LAWRENCE CO. – Last night Lawrence County Sheriff Greg Day presented to the county council a police pay study before the budget is decided in September.
Expecting a larger public turn-out, the county moved the meeting from the usual location on the lower floor of the courthouse to room 30 on the second floor.
As expected, around 6 p.m., thirty minutes before the meeting began, police officers and their families began to amass on the ground level as a show of support for the sheriff and the Lawrence County Police Department.
The room finally opened and the supporters poured into the seats as the council members took their places.
After a few matters were discussed and approved, including a transfer requested by Nedra Brock-Jones to remedy a $5,000 donation being placed in an incorrect account, and a report from Lesley Lodmell from the Extension Office regarding the quarterly report, Sheriff Greg Day took to the stand to begin his presentation.
According to the research the Sheriff has been compiling since early in the year, the Lawrence County Police Department is long overdue for a raise. As matters stand now, Lawrence County ranks dead last in starting pay for departments in Indiana.
Lawrence County makes the least, and since the department is the only one in the state to work around the clock, open 24-7, open for every holiday, and never closing for lunches. Officers are constantly on-call, restricting the distance they can go and the activities they can perform because of constant short staffing.
The Lawrence County Police Department has been treated in the past years much like any other county department, which doesn’t correlate with the importance and safety risk of their duties.
“Without a safe community, nothing else really matters,” said Sheriff Greg Day.
It’s difficult to keep officers in Lawrence County without competitive pay. Ranking last in pay results in the LCPD having a high turnover rate for new hires.
Even for top positions, which take 30 years to reach in Lawrence County as opposed to 20 in other counties, officers in Lawrence County still make less across the board. “It takes us longer to make less money,” explained the sheriff.
Over the last 5 years, the Lawrence County Police Department has hired 26 officers for 19 positions. Of the 25 spots, 19 of the officers holding them are new.
The Sheriff researched the cost of training and salary of a new hire, and the amount comes to a bare minimum of $80,000, which means over the 5 years, 1.5 million dollars were spent just in training new hires.
Alternatively, if the same positions had been given a $12,000 yearly raise, the Lawrence County Police Department would have spent the same $1.5 million but would have retained the experience and knowledge of more veteran officers.
Essentially, the cost to apply a raise that would gain the department and community the retention of those employees which would mean a higher level of experience, is equivalent to the cost of hiring new ones with each turnover.
This means that the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Department has less experienced officers in key authority roles simply due to a lack of tenure within the department.
Sheriff Greg Day presented many reasons why Lawrence County needs better, competitive pay for their officers:
- Without being short-staffed, citizens will get the service they deserve.
- Everyone is stretched thin, preventing the full effectiveness of the Police force.
- Risk of lawsuits resulting from lack of experience, losing access to the best candidates, and young officers training other young officers.
- Justice is delayed when detectives also handling investigations are pulled to help handle the constant influx of emergency calls.
Employees deserve compensation:
- Officers put their lives on the line constantly. Officer shootings have gone up by 13%
- Suicide and PTSD rates among officers are much higher than in other professions.
- Officers are subject to stresses that impact their overall life expectancy with risks of cardiac arrest, diabetes, high blood pressure, coronary disease, and mental health.
- Employees miss family events, and children’s activities, and lose time with the loved ones who would be most likely to help them cope with the dangers and stress.
- Divorce rates are as high as 70% among police officers.
Sherriff Day explained that “Police officers’ jobs take them way from the people who can help them the most with their issues – their family.”
The entire courtroom fell quiet as a body cam video from earlier this year was displayed for the council. Two officers were shot, one twice, in a violent altercation during an arrest. Both officers are still recovering and are not back to 100%.
After the video was shown, the present supporters and audience applauded in solidarity.
Sheriff Day proposed the following actions to support the Lawrence County Police Department:
- 4% county-wide raise plus an additional $12,000 across the board for merit deputies.
- Address merit deputy pension in the coming months.
- Change special deputies (court security officers, transport officers, animal control officers, and civilian process officers) from the C pay scale to the E pay scale. This moves them from receptionist pay to jail officer pay.
- Change dispatchers from E pay scale to A pay scale to provide for all the specialized training and workload.
The actual cost of the proposal:
| Position | Raise | Personnel |
| Merit Deputy | $336,387 | |
| Dispatch | $19,814 | 11 |
| Animal Control | $4,956 | 1 |
| Court Security | $10,641 | 4 |
| Transport | $17,485 | 3 |
| Civil Process | $3,253 | 1 |
TOTAL INVESTMENT IN RAISES: $392,536
The Sheriff concluded his presentation and request for a budget change by explaining the cost savings the Sheriff’s department has saved the county, and/or revenue they have brought it.
During the year, the department has not once asked the county for additional money. The Lawrence County Police Department also decreased the non-salary portion of the 2024 proposed budget, the Sheriff signing the minimum salary contract and giving the general fund all tax warranty money, eliminating the county’s portion of the Mitchell SRO by entering into an MOU that costs the county nothing, and monies generated by holding DOC inmates.
The Sherriff’s Department is on track to save the county general fund almost $575,000 for the entire year of 2023, which will cover the total cost of the raises with an additional $180,000 remaining should the proposal be adopted.
