Clark County Sheriff’s Office deputies and sergeants will see the first raise in nearly four years after the Clark County council unanimously approved a collective bargaining agreement with the deputy sheriffs guild Tuesday.
The agreement between Clark County and the Clark County Deputy Sheriff Guild, which represents deputy sheriffs and sergeants, is the first time since the end of 2012 that the two parties have been able to come to a collective bargaining agreement. The guild’s contract expired at the end of 2012, leaving deputies and sergeants in a holding pattern without raises.
The new agreement includes 2 percent raises for both 2013 and 2014, and 2 percent raises plus 0.5 percent market adjustments in 2015 and 2016.
Other changes made in the agreement include changing employees’ health care program and increasing the amount of time guild officers can take off for negotiations from 96 hours to 112 hours.
The agreement will cost the county about $3.4 million in the current budget biennium, to cover the raises and retroactive payments to former guild members, and about $2.9 million in the next biennium.
The guild had conditionally approved the contract pending county agreement, so starting immediately, deputy sheriffs, whose pay generally ranged from $23.87 to $30.46 hourly, will see those rates hiked to between $25.46 and $32.64 hourly, according to the sheriff’s office human resources department. Sergeants, whose pay generally ranged between $30.49 and $35.29 an hour, will see their pay rise to between $32.51 and $37.64 an hour.
A patrol deputy working 47 hours a week, for example, will see their annual salary increase from between $58,338.28 and $74,444.24 to between $62,224.24 and $79,772.16.
Next year, the fourth raise of this contract will increase the pay ranges to $26.10 to $33.29 for deputies and $33.32 to $38.58 for sergeants.
Any deputies or sergeants who left the department in “good standing” between Jan. 1, 2013, and Tuesday will receive a check in the mail compensating them for the back pay they would have received, said Breanne Nelson, human resources manager for the sheriff’s office.
“This is fantastic for the deputies if they retired or if they left the county,” she said.
Undersheriff Mike Cooke praised the agreement, saying it will ensure a “stable relationship” between employees and the county, as well as help the sheriff’s office attract new employees as its workforce continues to age.
“Just like any business, you want to attract the top talent you can but also meet your budgetary needs,” he said. “I think this contract does a good job of that.”
Negotiations for a new agreement must start no later than April 15 of next year, according to the agreement.
