Despite what the county staff report said, Del Norte Sheriff Garrett Scott told supervisors that he has used his ability to hire at a more advanced step in the salary schedule four times in the last six months.

Though they agreed that being able to hire at a level higher than Step A but no higher than Step C is a useful tool — one they allowed to continue on Tuesday — the Board was surprised at the sheriff’s news.

“It was less than three weeks ago when we had this conversation, and at the time it wasn’t a useful tool. As a matter of fact, I think you made some statements that it was a morale killer,” District 3 Supervisor Chris Howard said. “Obviously now you’ve corrected us in the sense you believe it has been used. I’m curious what’s changed with your perception in the last several months since the Board adopted this for you.”

Howard and his colleagues had allowed the sheriff to recruit staff at a higher step on the salary schedule starting May 14, 2024. The county’s staff report on Tuesday stated that the sheriff had not hired any employees at a higher level than Step A on the salary schedule. But the sheriff said that statement was a mistake and he appreciated having that authority.

The Board’s decision to continue with the current hiring practice comes about three weeks after they approved Scott’s plan to freeze positions in his office that had been vacant for more than a decade to increase salaries for new and existing employees. As a result, overall pay across the department increased by about 15 percent, according to Scott. But he told supervisors on Oct. 23 that he thinks a compensation study planned for early next year would show that Del Norte County deputies still make less than the industry standard.

As of  Oct. 23, the DNSO was down eight patrol deputies, five staffed positions in the jail  and three full-time bailiffs at the courthouse. There were also three vacancies in the dispatch center, Scott told supervisors.

On Tuesday, Scott said his morale concerns happen when someone with no experience is hired at a higher salary than someone else who has a year or two on the job.

He told Howard about a dispatcher he had hired last year who only had a year of experience and a dispatch certificate and the resulting conflict.

“I had used Step C to bring that particular dispatcher in and once they started working together and it was discovered I brought that person in at a higher step, the other girl quit,” Scott said. “I think that is the morale issue we deal with, and I think it’s complex. But when I talk specifically about using Step C for a really entry-level employee, I think that’s really difficult for me to make those determinations.”

The ability to hire at a Step C versus a Step A is useful when a recruit has prior experience through the military or at another law enforcement agency, Scott said.

He urged the Board to consider giving him that hiring authority in perpetuity, even going so far as to suggest using Measure R dollars to bring everyone who’s currently at a Step A or B on the salary schedule up to a Step C.

“I think there’s 18 or 19 Step A’s and Step B’s currently and you’re probably looking in the $50,000 range to bring up your A’s and B’s to a C to help move things along,” Scott said. “But that would be entirely up to the Board.”

At the Board’s Oct. 23 meeting, Scott said that his staffing plan would result in a pay raise — an entry-level position now gets $30 an hour, up from the previous $26.61. In response to those who felt that wasn’t good enough, District 2 Supervisor Valerie Starkey said it will take some time for those changes to take effect.

“It’s going to take a minute to show the impacts of that,” she said. “But there was not one thing that we did not provide to the sheriff just three weeks ago of what he asked for.”

Scott said the Board of Supervisors’ decision to develop a strategic plan and order a compensation study is important to determine what that pay should be in the future. The DNSO was experiencing a crisis when Scott presented his staffing plan. He said he’s hired a few experienced officers and have had others express interest in the positions. One person is attending the police academy and will graduate Dec. 13. The DNSO is in the process of trying to send five others through the academy, Scott said.

“It’s too premature to say, ‘Yes, this has made a great improvement,’ but I think it will,” the sheriff said of his staffing plan. “That comp study is going to be a big deal. The price of doing business and keeping the community safe is expensive and we are going to take that on. We have a lot to fix, a lot of things going on in the community that deserve attention.”