By Dan Spalding
News Now Warsaw
WARSAW — Kosciusko County Sheriff Jim Smith has been lobbying this summer to establish a cost-of-living allowance program for his deputies — a move that would align the department with Warsaw Police and Indiana State Police.
Smith made pitches to both the county council and commissioners but that was weeks ago and it is now the subject of a special joint meeting between the two governing bodies set for Tuesday morning.
Since Smith took office as sheriff, he said he has hired or replaced 14 merit deputies, and contends the lack of a COLA has become an issue for recruiting and retaining.
“I think it’s a long time coming,” Smith said. “It’d be nice to put that in a pension that way an officer who gets over that threshold and is vested in our retirement (program) has to take a step back and consider, ‘If I stay a few more years in the sheriff’s office then I woud qualify for that cost of living adjustment once I draw my pension.’ ”
Smith shared a letter from Chris Francis, who had been with the sheriff’s office, but said the existing pension plan was a factor in his decision to take a job with the Warsaw Police Department.
Rarely do officials talk about why an deputy left for another job, but Smith said Francis’s desision exemplies the need for change.
“He’ll tell you it was a factor in his consideration on leaving,” Smith said. “If he had stayed for another five years, hit that 20-year mark, he would have been qualified for the cost-of-living adjustment for retirement. But knowing it didn’t exist … he made the decision to start another retirement that did in fact have the cost-of-living adjustment implemented in it.”
The expected cost of providing a COLA for future and current retirees would be about $996,359 which would be an additional $358,404, according to a report from the Times-Union.
Smith has been working on such a plan for much of his first term and has carved out significant savings — about $375,000 — through a change in the jail’s food service contract.
But still, it’s a hefty request that comes at a time when county officials have expressed concern about budget limitations and recently turned back a sizeable mid-year proposal by the probation department for raises they said are needed to bring their staff up to par with other probation offices.
“They see it as a big ask, which it is, but it’s an important one, especially as we look at the landscape of what’s happening in the recruiting world in different departments,” Smith said.
Tuesday’s meeting is set for 10:30 a.m., in the old courtroom of the Kosciusko County Courthouse.
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