FARMINGTON – Franklin County commissioners voted Tuesday to raise wages for reserve dispatchers to $12.57 an hour and deputies to $13.14 an hour. It is 50 cents below a full-time position wage.
Sheriff Scott Nichols Sr. requested the increases.
Currently, reserves in both positions make $9.50 an hour, he said, which is well below other agencies. It is difficult to get trained part-time deputies and dispatchers to work for the county at the current pay rate, he said.
He presented commissioners with comparison rates from other agencies.
There is a need to get the rate up, he said, in order to attract part-time workers. This would be more helpful for the dispatch side now, he said. He’d like to have reserve dispatchers to have training and become certified.
He is not asking to increase the budget, he said.
Currently full-time workers are handling the shifts that a reserve would normally take and the overtime is “killing us,” county Clerk Julie Magoon said.
The union contract requires full-time employees to be asked first if they want to fill a shift.
The increase would be an incentive for part-time dispatchers to get certified, Nichols said.
dperry@sunjournal.com
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