A succession of signing bonuses seems to have done much to replenish the ranks under Alamance County’s sheriff – although they’ve also depleted the budgetary line item which has, so far, enabled to the sheriff to fund the extra remuneration.
According to Alamance County’s administrators, the sheriff’s office has promised these $10,000 bonuses to 27 recruits since this measure was first authorized on July 15. In the meantime, however, these financial enticements have eaten away at the sheriff’s unspent, or “lapsed,” salaries, which at last count, were on track to finish the fiscal year more than $80,000 in the hole.
This real-life allegory about the price of success was shared with the commissioners two weeks ago – just as sheriff Terry Johnson was preparing to approach them for permission to issue another batch of 10 signing bonuses. In the event, the commissioners agreed to put off the request until a date to be determined so that the sheriff could compare notes with the county’s administrators about the impact his recruitment initiative has had on both staffing and funds.
But to Alamance County’s manager Heidi York, the seesaw effect between these two factors has been pretty clear from the beginning.
“The lapsed salaries have diminished as his positions have gone up,” York explained in an interview Tuesday, “and when we projected it out, we found that, if things continue along their current course, the sheriff would run out of lapsed salaries before the end of the fiscal year.
In fact, York sent the commissioners a memo on January 30 that put the potential year-end shortfall in the sheriff’s lapsed salaries at $80,633.
This memo also contained some fresh staffing figures for the sheriff’s office to show the impact of Johnson’s various recruitment and retention initiatives.
These numbers revealed that, as of January 31, the sheriff’s office had 41 openings – a marked improvement from the 71 vacancies that the sheriff had among his mission-critical posts when he convinced the commissioners to approve the bonuses.
The county’s governing board had initially put off Johnson’s request for these financial inducements when he broached the idea shortly before the passage of the county’s current annual budget in June. At the time, the commissioners were already grappling with potential property tax increase, which they ultimately set at an additional 3.66 cents for every $100 of property value.
The commissioners nevertheless encouraged Johnson to renew his request in the new financial cycle, when they assumed they’d be more kindly disposed to proposals for additional spending.
Barely two weeks after the new budget took effect on July 1, Jackie Fortner, the sheriff’s chief deputy, presented the commissioners with a formal request for signing bonuses. Fortner’s proposal called for each eligible recruit to receive $10,000 over 22 months in return for a contractual commitment to remain with the sheriff’s office during that time.
The plan was to use these inducements to fill the 71 openings that Johnson had at the time in mission-critical positions like front-line deputies and jailers.
The sheriff’s chief deputy went on to assure the commissioners that the agency’s lapsed salaries would provide plenty of funds to cover these bonuses, which he promised to discontinue once he had filled 80 percent of the 71 posts.
The commissioners, for their part, were reluctant to give the sheriff a blank check to issue these five-figure payouts. They nevertheless gave the sheriff the greenlight to issue 10 bonuses and bade him to return for further authorization for each subsequent 10-unit increment he wants to distribute.
Since the commissioners authorized the first batch of signing bonuses in July, Johnson or his subordinates have brought the commissioners two more requests for signing bonuses – bringing the total so far authorized to 30.
The fortifying effect that these bonuses have had on the sheriff’s manpower was easy enough to infer from the figures which York shared with the commissioners two weeks ago.
According to these numbers, the sheriff’s office currently has 41 vacancies among its 318 posts – for an overall vacancy rate of 13 percent. This proportion ticked up to 15 percent when the county’s administrators focused on to the sheriff’s detention division, which reportedly had 17 openings among its 114 slots as of January 30.
Yet, the vacancy rate positively skyrocketed when they drilled down on the detention officers that the sheriff has set aside to guard detainees from the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
According to the aforementioned memo, this program had 14 openings among its 21 posts as of January 30. This vacancy rate, which amounts to about 67 percent, was presumably a side effect of the federal agency’s reduced need for detention space under the administration of former President Joe Biden.
According to Johnson, ICE has shown a renewed interest in the county’s detention facilities since the inauguration of the current President Donald Trump, who had run on a pledge to deport illegal immigrants – particularly those with criminal records.
Two weeks ago, Johnson told The Alamance News that he may need to hire as many as 33 additional jailers to slake the sudden thirst for more jail space among his contacts at the federal bureau. He went on to suggest that he may ask the commissioners for permission to issue more signing bonuses in order to increase his staffing to meet the demand.
[See earlier story about potential increase in jail space as ICE continues sweeps for criminal illegal aliens: https://alamancenews.com/sheriff-says-ice-looking-for-possible-jail-space-for-criminal-illegal-aliens/ ]
York told the newspaper that, at last check, the sheriff still had three signing bonuses left from the 30 which the commissioners have, so far, given him leave to distribute.
The county manager added that, up to this point, the sheriff’s office has already expended $135,000 on the 27 bonuses he has promised – setting the stage for a potential year-end deficit in his line item for lapsed salaries.
York noted that the depletion of these funds could be an obstacle to the issuance of additional bonuses.
“But the board could also approve a budget amendment to cover the deficit,” she went on to acknowledge.
