Sheriff, council say York Co. can’t keep up with deputy vacancies

Sheriff Bruce Bryant said he has constant turnover on his 203-member York County law enforcement team, and recruiting deputies has become increasingly difficult.

Bryant, who angrily lashed out Monday at the York County Council for failing to approve his request for more officers, said he needs at least six more deputies to provide courtroom security.

County Council members declined to approve any more deputy jobs, however, saying the sheriff hasn’t filled the vacancies he has for many months.

The issue has put Bryant and some County Council members at odds. But they all agree on one thing: York County needs to find a way to fill the law enforcement jobs it has.

“It is getting to be more and more difficult,” Bryant said about hiring new deputies. “And these positions would be easier to fill if we would keep our salaries up.”

The starting salary for a York County sheriff’s deputy is $35,898, Bryant said, but he said that lags behind many other local departments. The starting pay for a Rock Hill police officer, for example, is $38,512, said city spokeswoman Katie Quinn.

County Council Chairman Britt Blackwell said the county recently completed a salary study and will be working to bring salaries up in areas where they are not competitive.

County Manager Bill Shanahan could not be reached last week for further details on the salary plan.

Blackwell suggested the county might consider a law enforcement incentive program that would offer $5,000 hiring bonuses to 20 deputies who complete the training and serve for a designated time.

“Maybe this would be a way to help this situation,” Blackwell said. “Sheriff’s salaries have drifted down. We need to make sure we are paying our law enforcement people what they deserve to be paid and be very competitive.”

Bryant said he’d love to talk about an incentive program.

He said he was planning to begin his own incentive program, offering $1,000 bonuses to employees who recruit law enforcement officers, with another $1,000 for each new recruit. He said the bonuses would be funded by money from illegal drug cases that comes back to the department.

“We can’t lower our standards,” Bryant said about finding new deputies, who go through a series of psychological, aptitude, fitness and drug tests during the hiring process. “When you start lowering our standards, you are asking for trouble in the streets.”

Bryant said he needs more staffing in many areas of his department, including patrol deputies, detectives and school resource, lake patrol, drug enforcement and court security deputies. His department also includes officers who serve warrants and civil papers.

He said he asked for six more deputies for the budget year that began July 1 to provide court security. He said he needs 19 full-time officers for court security and has only 12.

Bryant said Shanahan put three full-time and three part-time deputy jobs in the proposed 2016-17 budget. However, Bryant said none of those jobs was in the final budget approved by the council in late June.

Council member Michael Johnson moved to eliminate the proposed deputy jobs from the budget in late June, a move approved by the council. Johnson argued that Bryant’s department had seven vacancies at that time and said adding three more jobs “didn’t make sense.”

Bryant, Blackwell and Johnson said the number of vacancies in the sheriff’s department because of turnover has varied over time. Blackwell said it was as high as 20 six months ago and recently is about 10.

Blackwell said a couple years ago, the sheriff’s department was losing a lot of younger officers to other departments because they didn’t see room to advance.

Johnson said the sheriff’s department “hasn’t been at capacity for several years,” and he said Bryant has made pleas to the council to make deputy salaries more competitive.

“The real problem is we can’t hire people,” Johnson said. “And we’ve gotta fix that. And once we fix that, we can take a look at what positions you need.”

Bryant asked the council to revisit its decision on his request for courtroom security deputies. He said failing to give him jobs he needs for court security forces him to pay overtime to existing court security officers on their days off or take deputies off the road and put them in the courtroom.

“We are mandated to have these people for security in these courtrooms,” Bryant said. “It’s not a matter of saying, ‘You’re just going to have to work short-handed today.’”

When the York County courthouse in downtown York opens, expected late this year, Bryant said he will need six more court security officers for the added courtrooms.

“Every law enforcement agency in this country has got vacancies,” Bryant said. “Are you going to cut their staff? You are always going to have people coming and going in this profession.”

Blackwell said he asked Shanahan to meet with Bryant to talk about the needs and determine what the county should do.

Blackwell said the council “is more pro-law enforcement than any other council. But at the same time, we have an obligation to the taxpayers as to how the money is spent.”

This story was originally published July 24, 2016 at 6:38 PM with the headline "Sheriff, council say York Co. can’t keep up with deputy vacancies."