Tipton County, City councils punt on immediate police, fire pay raises

Feb. 26—TIPTON — Both the Tipton County Council and the City Council passed on giving immediate pay raises for their respective public safety employees, but both boards said they would not abandon the issue completely.

The County Council voted 5-0 Tuesday to table a resolution that would've increased the base pay for sheriff deputies to $51,000 and $37,500 for county correctional officers. Brian Nichols was the only council member to abstain from the vote; Councilman Butch Harpel was not present at the meeting.

A separate motion made by Nichols to increase pay to $50,000 and $37,000 for deputies and correctional officers, respectively, failed after not receiving a second.

Some county council members said they preferred to discuss and make such changes during budget time, which is usually held later in the year during the late summer and early fall. Others said they would like to establish a personnel committee to study the pay issue for all county employees and come back with a possible solution later in the year.

"This is the start of a lot better things," Jim Purvis, county councilman, said. "I want the employees to hear that. There is help coming. We need time to process."

The reassurances that the issue will not be thrown on the backburner from council members did little to appease Tipton County Sheriff Tony Frawley.

"I'm extremely disappointed in this board," Frawley said. "I spent several hours with each of you combined, and I poured my heart out, and I really don't know what to say. But I'm going to work tomorrow to do the job the people of this community elected me to do. We're going to have a meeting tomorrow [Wednesday] with the jail staff, and that meeting is not what I thought it would be, or what I hoped it would be. I hope we can keep our head above water in the jail, but I'm not sure."

Frawley said he had three correctional officers waiting on the outcome of this meeting before deciding whether or not to start looking for other, better-paying jobs. Now, with the inaction of the board, they'll be looking for other jobs, he said.

The sheriff had previously asked for an increase in base salary to $48,000 for deputies and $36,000 for his correctional officers during last year's budget session but that too was denied.

Earlier this year, Frawley said his department has lost three deputies in the last few months — two to the Kokomo Police Department and one to the Howard County Sheriff's Department — due to higher pay at those other departments.

One of the former employees who joined KPD is now being paid $18,000 more, Frawley said, while the other is now being paid $16,000 more. The former employee who left for Howard County Sheriff's Department is now making $10,000 more and received a $5,000 hiring bonus. That's not including better insurance and pension benefits, Frawley added.

The starting salary for a correctional officer in Tipton County is $32,784 and $45,968 after one year for deputies.

While the County Council voted to table the issue, the general consensus among board members is the county does need to become more competitive with its wages, especially in regard to public safety.

That will be much easier said than done as Tipton County has a substantially smaller tax base than neighboring, much larger counties such as Howard and Hamilton, where Tipton County is losing most of its public safety employees.

The county, however, does have a fairly healthy cash balance of $3.9 million in its General Fund. That has increased in recent years due to the implementation of the county's public safety tax.

"We have done fairly well [financially], but we're still a small county, and have all the problems that go along with being a small county and trying to compete with the big boys ... We've looked at other counties of similar size, similar geographic area to try and be sure we're in the ballpark," Jim Ashley, County Council president, said. "To be honest, I think we're in the ballpark with other similar communities. That doesn't alleviate the problem we got — that Kokomo's pushing bounties out on sheriff deputies to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars ... We just can't compete with them."

City of Tipton

The Tipton City Council has also decided to push the issue of police and fire pay to further in the year.

The City Council held a public work session last week regarding the issue of increasing base pay for the Tipton police and fire departments after both departments' chiefs came to the council and asked for raises in base salaries.

Earlier this month, Tipton Police Chief Jeff Stout asked the council to consider a starting officer salary of between $50,000 to $55,000. Fire Chief Joe Bitner asked the City Council to consider raising the starting firefighter pay to $51,000 and increase the maximum amount one can receive in longevity pay to $7,500. Both departments told the council they are having a difficult time retaining employees due to better pay at other nearby departments.

Currently, the starting pay for a first-year Tipton officer is $46,225 and the starting salary for Tipton firefighters is $43,679.

Tipton Mayor Tom Dolezal, though, said Thursday that the city attorney advised him and the City Council that the city should address the pay issue during budget sessions later this year, according to the Tipton County Tribune.

Dolezal said Monday his administration and the City Council will continue talks with the police and fire departments about what needs to be changed and improved and that he expects to have more information on what the city may do at the City Council's next meeting March 8.

"We understand there's a lot of work to be done," Dolezal said.

Tyler Juranovich can be reached at 765-454-8577, by email at tyler.juranovich@kokomotribune.com or on Twitter at @tylerjuranovich

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