The old dirge about turnover has given way to a more cheerful refrain at the office of Alamance County’s sheriff as the agency begins to feel the effects of a five-figure signing bonus that got a reluctant nod from the county’s elected leaders barely two weeks ago.
The county’s board of commissioners formally authorized these $10,000 enticements on July 15 in order to help the sheriff’s office reverse a chronic problem with turnover among its jailers and patrol deputies. Yet, some lingering doubts about the efficacy of these payments convinced the commissioners to sign off on only 10 of these bonuses at a time and require the sheriff’s office to get another vote of approval once it reaches this limit.
Since the commissioners cleared this first round of bonuses, the sheriff’s office has witnessed a deluge of new applications that could bring the agency’s higher ups back the county’s governing board a bit sooner than the county’s leaders may have anticipated.
According to sheriff Terry Johnson, his agency’s administrators are still vetting the roughly three dozen applicants who’ve sent in their resumes since the new bonuses went into effect. In the meantime, Johnson acknowledged that he and his colleagues are already about to bump up against the 10-bonus quota as they take on the first batch of recruits who qualified for this financial incentive.
“There’s three who have contracts and six that we’re preparing to swear in,” the sheriff said in an interview Wednesday. “I don’t think that the commissioners or the county’s administrators thought [the bonuses] would make much of a difference. But the applications have been rolling in like never before.”
A cautious step forward
The apparent success of these bonuses was still very much an open question when the county’s board of commissioners voted 4-to-1 to authorize these financial inducements on July 15. A majority of the commissioners ultimately agreed to let the sheriff’s office issue up to 10 of these $10,000 payments to new jailers and deputies who agree to work 12-hour shifts either out on patrol or in the county’s detention center. In each case, this five-figure largesse will be paid out incrementally – with the first $5,000 tendered at the moment of hire. The remainder would then be doled out in two month intervals once the new recruit has reached his or her 14th month on the job.
As a condition of these payments, recipients would be contractually obligated to remain in the sheriff’s employ for at least 22 months. In addition, the commissioners have decreed that the sheriff can hand out just 10 of these bonuses at a time before he must return to them for permission to continue making the payouts.
Even with these conditions in place, the sheriff’s administrators were optimistic that the new bonuses would be a game changer for their languishing recruitment efforts. Their hopes have, so far, been vindicated by the overwhelming response from potential new hires.
According to the sheriff’s office, its administrators are currently reviewing 32 applications from prospective deputies and another nine from aspiring detention officers. The agency has also extended bonus contracts to three candidates who were already in the pipeline when the bonuses were authorized, while it has prepared an expedited welcome for six “lateral transfers” from other law enforcement agencies.
Johnson stressed that this last set of recruits consists largely of law enforcement professionals from outside of Alamance County.
“We just hired one from Eden, North Carolina, and we’ve got some coming in from Guilford County,” the sheriff explained before he reflected on the rigors of his agency’s hiring process, which includes a psych screening, a polygraph test, and a thorough background check. “Not everybody completes our process,” he added, “and I’m not going to hire them if they don’t meet our standards.”
Desperate times
Although the sheriff may currently have more applicants than he can beat with a truncheon, it wasn’t so long ago that he and his colleagues were fighting tooth and nail for every qualified new hire they could get. These recruitment troubles were only made worse by a persistent problem with turnover that had defied just about every attempt that the county had made to staunch the flow of personnel.
The commissioners had previously tried to stem these defections using a variety of strategies, including a so-called “shift bonus” of $4,000 a year that are extended to deputies and jailers who pull 12 hour stints on active duty. Yet, the sheriff’s office has continued to hemorrhage personnel due, in part, to recruitment measures at other agencies – including a package of across-the-board pay raises of nearly $9,000 that Burlington’s police department implemented in 2022.
Johnson and his colleagues initially floated the idea of signing bonuses as a means to replenish their ranks while the commissioners were wrangling over the county’s current annual budget earlier this year. The commissioners went on to adopt the budget in June sans the proposed bonuses – although they assuaged the sheriff with a promise that they’d revisit his request after the new fiscal year began on July 1.
The sheriff’s office wasted no time in reprising the proposed bonuses when the commissioners convened their first meeting of the current financial cycle on July 15.
In lieu of the sheriff, who was on vacation that week, Johnson’s chief deputy Jackie Fortner approached the commissioners that evening with a revised version of the plan that his agency had originally tried to work into the budget. Fortner emphasized that, in the weeks since the budget’s approval, his agency’s vacancies have increased from 70 to 71 – with 51 of these openings concentrated within the sheriff’s detention division. Fortner added that a generous signing bonus is the only measure that he believes will reverse this disheartening trend among the sheriff’s rank and file.
“What would this do?” [It would] enlarge our application pool, motivate individuals to leave their current employer. . . We also want to increase the morale [of existing personnel] when people can’t get off [because the sheriff’s office is perennially shorthanded].”
– Chief Deputy Jackie Fortner
“What would this do?” the sheriff’s chief deputy went on to inquire rhetorically. “[It would] enlarge our application pool, motivate individuals to leave their current employer…We also want to increase the morale [of existing personnel] when people can’t get off [because the sheriff’s office is perennially shorthanded].”
Deliverance in the details
Like the sheriff’s earlier gambit, Fortner’s pitch to the commissioners on July 15 called for signing bonuses of $10,000 to be distributed until the sheriff’s office is able to fill 80 percent of its vacancies. Fortner’s latest proposal nevertheless included some added provisions to counter the various objections which the commissioners had previously raised.
For starters, Fortner observed that the entire $10,000 sum wouldn’t be paid out in a single lump sum to the newly-onboarded recruit. On the advice of county attorney Rik Stevens, the sheriff’s office has agreed to cut a check for the first $5,000 at the moment of hire. Another $1,000 would then be paid out when the new deputy or jailer has been with the agency for 14 months. The recruit would then get four more payments of $1,000 a piece at two month intervals – with the final installment due in their 22nd month of service. The recruit would, moreover, have to sign a contract requiring they pay back all of this compensation if they leave the sheriff’s employ before those 22 months are up.
Fortner made it abundantly clear that he had every expectation these measures would pass muster with the county’s governing board. He acknowledged that the sheriff’s office has already lined up the dominos to begin issuing the bonuses at the first available opportunity.
“We have done all this stuff in preparation for your vote tonight,” he added, “so we can hit the ground running tomorrow.”
Fortner’s proposal went over particularly well with John Paisley, Jr., the chairman of Alamance County’s commissioners. Paisley reminded his colleagues that he has opposed the county’s previous experiments with signing bonuses, including an erstwhile incentive for social workers that was eventually discontinued due to its paltry results. He added, however, that the contractual requirements in the sheriff’s latest proposal have done much to acclimate him to the idea.
“Mr. Stevens has drafted what I think is an excellent contract,” Paisley added in reference to the county attorney’s contribution to the proposal, “and if they don’t complete the entirety of the contract…they have to pay those bonuses back.”
A mixed response
Fortner’s proposal nevertheless left some lingering doubts for commissioner Bill Lashley, who had previously joined Paisley in opposing the county’s new budget due to its inclusion of a property tax increase of 3.66 cents.
Lashley reiterated his concerns about the county’s overall spending levels after Fortner had made his latest pitch for the proposed signing bonuses. Although the county’s administrators had agreed to bankroll the bonuses using the sheriff’s lapsed salaries, Lashley remained hesitant to authorize an initiative that he calculated would cost the county a total of $560,000 to fill 80 percent of the sheriff’s vacancies.
“I’m trying not to spend money that I don’t really don’t need to spend. Maybe you can do it piecemeal. . . You can get [the authority to provide bonuses for] 10 positions, and when you get those 10 positions filled, you can pick up the phone [and ask the commissioners for permission to fill another 10 posts]. I don’t have a half a million dollars to give away. You know that, as with any other department, if you hand them the money, it’s going to go away.
– County commissioner Bill Lashley
“I’m trying not to spend money that I don’t really don’t need to spend,” he added. “Maybe you can do it piecemeal…You can get [the authority to provide bonuses for] 10 positions, and when you get those 10 positions filled, you can pick up the phone [and ask the commissioners for permission to fill another 10 posts].”
Paisley added that he briefed the sheriff on Lashley’s proposal to approve the bonuses in increments of 10 and found Johnson to be amenable to the idea.
Yet, the piecemeal approach drew some objections from Steve Carter, the vice chairman of Alamance County’s commissioners. Carter protested that an arbitrary limit of 10 positions would hamstring the sheriff’s efforts to recruit new personnel. This complaint soon drew an indignant riposte from Lashley.
“I don’t have a half a million dollars to give away,” Lashley bellowed across the dais at Carter. “You know that, as with any other department, if you hand them the money, it’s going to go away…You just got finished raising taxes, Steve. Why do you want to take another half a million from the people without knowing that you’ll get anything for it?”
Carter went on to defend the sheriff’s proposed 80 percent cut-off on the grounds that funds to cover the bonuses would come out of his agency’s lapsed salaries – and would therefore require no additional revenue from the county’s general funds.
“It’s coming out of one bucket in their budget,” he said, “and you’re putting it in another bucket, Bill.”
“Go ahead,” Lashley responded sarcastically, “give them half a million bucks, Steve.”
In order to break the impasse, Paisley made a motion to approve the proposed signing bonuses for the first 10 positions, as Lashley had recommended. This move clinched the support of commissioner Craig Turner, while Carter also grudgingly went along with the motion.
“I care enough about what they need to vote for this,” he added. “But I hope we’re not hamstringing them.”
The only dissenting vote in this case came from commissioner Pam Thompson, who recalled the county’s unimpressive track record with signing bonuses in other departments.
“I’m a ‘no’,” she said, “because I have seen how they’re not effective.”
