Guilford County Sheriff Danny Rogers is making a plea for what he says is a dire need for the county to raise the pay of the men and women serving in the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department.
He said the department is seeing an exodus of good officers who are leaving to take better paying jobs at other area law enforcement agencies. He said the current rate of loss makes it crystal clear the department needs to award pay hikes and needs to do so now.
“They need pay raises,” Rogers said this week.
He said that, recently in the news, there’s been a lot of talk about the federal government shutdown and the crisis that could result from not having enough Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers on duty, but he added that a lack of competitive pay for the officers in his department is also creating major problems.
“I’m in my own crisis with officers taking other jobs,” he said.
The sheriff said the department was down significantly on patrol officers because Guilford County has been losing them to other area agencies that provide higher pay.
“Greensboro, Gibsonville, Forsyth County …” Rogers said, reeling off a host of other names as well of surrounding law enforcement agencies where former Guilford County Sheriff’s Department officers have taken jobs recently.
For years, the Sheriff’s Department has had a well-known problem of hiring and keeping an adequate number of detention officers to staff the county’s two jails but Rogers said the pay issue is affecting the department in many areas.
According to Rogers, departing officers have even been going into other fields.
“One took a job at Pepsi – Pepsi,” Rogers said.
The sheriff said Guilford County administrators are currently looking into the matter of raises.
“They are conducting a pay study, but I can’t wait a year for them to get it done,” Rogers said.
He said that, given the importance of the jobs and the dangers that those jobs entail, the department’s employees certainly deserve to be paid a competitive wage.
“I have officers out there every day working and putting their lives on the line,” he said.
Rogers added that it simply doesn’t look good for such a large, reputable department to be underpaying its workers.
“We are the second largest in the state and we are not paying enough – give me a break,” he said.
There are a lot of things that Rogers and former Guilford County Sheriff BJ Barnes do not agree on, but the issue of higher pay for the 600-plus workers in the department isn’t one of those things. For years, Barnes argued there was a need for higher pay throughout the Sheriff’s Department, but Rogers is now raising those pleas to a new level due to the recent significant loss of officers to other agencies and to the private sector.
The Guilford County Board of Commissioners is just weeks away from the board’s annual retreat, where the commissioners traditionally take the first real steps toward forming a county budget. The budget will be adopted in June and go into effect on July 1 for fiscal 2019-2020. Increases in pay traditionally happen, if they do, in the budget; however, the board has been known to offer raises at other times of the year as well.
Some commissioners – such as Commissioner Carolyn Coleman – push for higher county employee pay across the board every year, but others, such as the board’s five Republicans who control the board, have been focused on trying to find a way to pay for some major much needed capital projects.
Well, there’s never enough money for these people, is there? As they incessantly shill about what heroes they are – along with their fawning media – can we tell the truth about cops? the psychological profile of the vast majority of them is that of a rather unintelligent type with a high propensity for controlling others. we used to call them school yard bullies, because that’s what most of them were as kids. The gratification they get from this pales next to their chronic incompetece. In reality, these are the guys who turn up after you’ve been mugged, raped, burglarized or murdered, and write down words on pieces of paper.
If you want protection, get a gun.
Government’s idea of protecting you is as laughable as their idea of educating your children.
I think they make enough, more than most, hell I worked for less. The fact is if they make more money, our taxes go up and they high as it is. Sorry but there are cops making under 30,000 in the state, hell with benefits and take home cars, they make more. Sorry but I don’t want my taxes to keep going up because I am trying to sell and leave Guilford County.
Ed Melvin (who made 110k per year) didn’t leave because of lack of money. None of the officers that we taxpayers paid to train and educate who were then fired by Danny Rogers left because of the money. People are leaving because the morale in the GCSO is dropping faster than anyone thought possible. Even the naive who applauded at the swearing in ceremonies have began to openly mock Rogers, Netter, et al. Claiming lack of money is Rogers way of disguising his incompetence and bad decisions.