When Grant County Law Enforcement/Emergency Management Committee member Gary Northouse asked if a $2 hourly increase would have been enough to stop current jailers from leaving to take jobs with the state, Chief Deputy Travis Klaas responded “I don’t think it is enough.” He also thinks an ongoing marketplace study will show what he already knows - the wages jailers make in Grant County is far lower than the surrounding counties, and 2024 will be worse without any changes.
Klaas, who was the jail administrator before he became Chief Deputy, is concerned about losing any more employees. He had already received two written notices from existing jailers that they planned to leave for new jobs with the Wisconsin Secured Detention Facility in Boscobel, another is planning to go to the state prison in Prairie du Chien, and another is going through medical reviews, which if passed, will go work in Boscobel.
And just like that, one fourth of the 16-person Grant County Jail staff will need to be replaced.
Last month. in front of this committee, Klaas forecast that the county could lose at least one quarter of its current 16-person jail staff, and one month later that has come true.
Now the question is, what will stem the tide to prevent more resignations.
Between two committee meetings this week - the issue was also taken up by the Executive Committee - numerous ideas were discussed, including merging all the jailers and deputies together, in order to prevent this from becoming more dire.
“We are currently in crisis mode,” Sheriff Nate Dreckman told the Executive Committee Tuesday. Dreckman explained that they always were concerned about losing jailers to surrounding counties, since Grant County has the lowest wage in the region for its jailers.
Despite that, the county has been able to recruit and retain jailers.
However, that all changed with a series of items in the new Wisconsin State Budget. The State of Wisconsin has constantly had issues attracting and retaining prison staff, so as part of the budget, the wage for a prison employee is jumping from $26 an hour to $33, which is nearly $11 more than Grant County pays.
Klaas said talking to one of the jailers planning to leave, he noted how they talked about the massive increase in take-home pay they will have, which for a one-income family household is impossible to turn away.
Legislation written negatively impacts existing workers more
In addition to the increased pay for prison staff, the State Legislature has approved new rules for local municipal and county jailers, giving them the ability to have protective status by default.
Protective status allows jailers to have items that law enforcement officers currently have, giving them more if they were injured on the job, as well as the ability to retire earlier.
However, the legislation that was passed this year, has several catches, including penalizing existing workers more than those who are hired after Jan. 1, 2024, when the impact goes into effect.
For one thing, the increased benefit cost has to be paid for directly by the employee. Unlike other protective status employees, like law enforcement officers, where this is covered as part of their benefits package, the jailers will have the funds taken directly out of their salaries.
Impacting existing employees even more is that for them, the amount is taken out post-tax, while for new hires in 2024, it is going to be taken out pre-tax.
Existing employees will be given a choice, they can decide to accept the protective status, and see the reduction in their salary, or opt out of the program. They will have 60 days to decide after Jan. 1, 2024, and once they opt-out, they can never change their mind, unless they go to a different employer.
If they remain in the program, it will double their retirement benefit contribution.
The legislation also states that the employer cannot simply compensate the employee for the increased costs.
During the Executive Committee meeting, Supervisor Carol Beals said that the legislators should have known of the impact, especially State Sen. Howard Marklein, who she said touts he has a high number of prisons in his district, and had been the main proponent of this legislation for years.
“Everyone of them should have known this would have happened,” Beals said. We ought to make sure that this was covered,” Beals continued, adding Marklein should have realized the impact. “It created a lot of problems in his district.”
County had a fix, but was blocked by legal opinion
Grant County actually had a fix for this issue, and in 2019 passed a resolution to give protective status to their jailers.
Doing so would have given the jailers the benefits of the status, while allowing them to have that portion of the benefit contribution covered by the county. It also would have meant that the jailers would have been exempt from the impact the new legislation has on jailers without protective status.
Despite passing the resolution in August 2019, the county never placed the jailers in protective status. This is because of a legal opinion given to them by attorney Kyle Gulya of the law firm Von Briesen and Roper on Sept. 6, 2019.
Von Briesen and Roper at the time was the firm of Andy Phillips, who is the legal counsel for the Wisconsin Counties Association.
The opinion stated that the jailers due not meet the first criteria for protective status, being active law enforcement, and therefore if there was a challenge by the Wisconsin Department of Employee Trust Funds, they did not feel there would be a legal case to defend the county.
Phillips had been continuously telling counties that they should not classify jailers as protective status, saying that they do not fit the criteria put forth in Wisconsin Act 10, the 2011 act that stripped the jailers of being in the public safety unions as a part of efforts by the state to limit public service unions in the state.
Championed by then-Gov. Scott Walker, Act 10 gave an exemption to public safety employees - law enforcement, as well as professional firefighters and EMS/paramedics.
During Tuesday’s meeting, an idea was floated to again try and give the jailers protective status, by making the positions also deputies.
“What if we make jailers and deputies all the same?” County Board Chair Robert Keeney asked.
Sheriff Dreckman said it had been talked about. “We have had a lot of discussion,” Dreckman shared. He noted that, for one, places like Dane County do this, assigning deputies to the jail.
“For us, it is a huge advantage,” Dreckman said.
In the meantime, the county looked at ways to provide increased compensation. Because the county is conducting a labor market study, with the results to be given next month, it was believed that the study will show there will need to be an increase in salary.
Klaas noted something needed to be done because, while increases would cost the county more, so would the loss of trained employees, which the county would need to replace with recruits, paying to go get training, and the cost of overtime in between.
