Sheriff’s office reforms would add $2.9 million in new spending over three years
The budget calls for raises, new hires, body cameras, equipment upgrades and building repairs
By Michael Indriolo
The sheriff’s office laid out an ambitious budget reform plan Thursday, asking for $2.9 million more over three years for new hires, across-the-board salary raises, facilities repairs and new equipment.
In a NEOMED classroom filled with nearly 100 deputies and supporters, Sheriff Bruce Zuchowski described lackluster infrastructure and underpaid personnel.
The additional funding would pay for repairs in the sheriff’s office headquarters and jail, which have damaged ceilings, floors and walls.
According to a salary study the sheriff’s office conducted, its employees are paid less on average than those at other nearby law enforcement agencies. The Portager previously requested a copy of this study, but the sheriff’s office has not yet provided it.
“We need to get our people back up where they need to be,” Zuchowski said. “We got some great people. … We need to keep them.”
The sheriff’s office wants to hire two additional K-9s, three dispatchers, six patrol deputies and 12 corrections officers. These new hires are necessary to keep up the sheriff’s office coverage of about 412 square miles of Portage County, Chief Deputy Ralph Spidalieri said.
They would also grant raises to all employees in those divisions. For deputies, the sheriff’s office proposed a $5,000 salary increase each year for two years and a 4 percent increase for the third year. Dispatchers and corrections officers would receive a $3,000 raise each year for two years and the same 4 percent increase for year three.
These raises are essential for employee retention and to attract qualified candidates, Spidalieri said.
The Portage County Sheriff’s Office has long been viewed as a “training ground” from which employees can leave for higher-paying departments, said sheriff’s office Lt. Harry Muir. According to the sheriff’s office’s salary study, its patrol deputies make $59,245 annually, less than police officers in comparable positions at departments in Ravenna, Kent, Aurora and Streetsboro. The same goes for dispatchers, who make $49,272 at the Portage County Sheriff’s Office.
Corrections lieutenants and sergeants, who make $74,055 and $66,324 respectively at the sheriff’s office, make less than those in Lorain, Geauga, Cuyahoga and Summit counties, according to the salary study.
“We have to have the equipment, we have to have the training, we have to have at least competitive wages,” Muir said. “I’m not saying we need to make as much Aurora, as much as some of these cities. That’s probably not going to be possible. But there are other assets, other resources that the county has that we can offer to provide these people an incentive to stay. In a lot of cases right now, the decision to leave is easy. We need to make that a lot harder. We need to make this a place where people want to come, they want to stay, they want to spend a career.”
The sheriff’s office also brought in a representative from Enterprise Fleet Management to discuss plans to lease new vehicles.
Under the proposal, the sheriff’s office could lease a few new vehicles each year, rotating out older vehicles every three years. The new vehicles would reduce maintenance costs, and Enterprise is offering to provide the sheriff’s office a portion of the sale of retired vehicles, said Account Manager Jennifer Inzetta.
The sheriff’s office would assign a take-home vehicle to each patrol deputy, 34 in total, and save about $446,261 over 10 years, according to the sheriff’s office projections. The sheriff’s office would operate an entirely leased fleet by 2023.
Additionally, the sheriff’s office plans to upgrade equipment in all its divisions. The radios road deputies use are three generations behind the newest model and aren’t serviced by Motorola anymore, Spidalieri said. The radios used by corrections officers, for example, cannot contact any deputies outside the jail.
Other radios in the field are prone to failure, Spidalieri said, making it difficult for deputies to call for assistance, especially in certain parts of the county. Along with radios would come upgrades to the mobile data terminals in deputies’ vehicles, ballistic shields and helmets, and an outsourced policy and procedure handbook from Lexipol, a for-profit company that has raised concerns for its role in shaping police policy nationwide.
“Put a deputy out there that’s got a bad radio and needs assistance,” Spidalieri said. “Put yourself in those shoes.”
Spidalieri said the sheriff’s office also needs body and vehicle cameras to defend its officers against lawsuits as well as new surveillance systems in the Portage County jail.
“Body cameras have a huge advantage in today’s day and age,” he said. “You have people that are sue happy. You have people that are making false allegations. You have people that are just making anything that they can to try to purposely discredit the police.”
As for infrastructure improvements, Spidalieri showed pictures of flaking paint, badly chipped floors and water damaged ceilings at the sheriff’s office and the jail. It is currently restoring several offices and rooms throughout the building as well as painting and cleaning offices and hallways. In the future, the sheriff’s office would like to upgrade its security doors with key card access, rebuild both the concealed carry weapons office and civil office, expand the detective bureau and replace broken exit doors.
The sheriff’s office has some plans to raise funds for these reforms. Increased CCW permit scheduling is raising significantly more money than it had previously, Spidalieri said. With the help of former Geauga County Administrator Dave Lair, the sheriff’s office will audit all of its current expenditures to find ways to save money. He pointed out that the sheriff’s office paid roughly $753,000 for its phone service last year, a service that, 10 years ago, cost about $80,000.
“We’re paying our deputies $59,000 a year, but we are pissing away three quarters of a million dollars in phone bills,” Spidalieri said. “If I sounded upset, I am. This is what makes government fail.”
This article was produced through a reporting partnership with the Collaborative News Lab @ Kent State University.
