What the sheriff salary increase bill means to Greene County
PROTECTED CONTENT
If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.
Username and Password Help
Please enter your email and we will send you a password reset link.
By Carmen Ensinger
There are many questions surrounding why the County Board is refusing to pass the resolution regarding raising the Sheriff’s salary to 80 percent of the State’s Attorney’s salary.
The bill was passed by the General Assembly on April 19 requiring the salary of the sheriff in a non-home rule county to be not less than 80 percent of the salary set for the State’s Attorney.
The State will furnish two-thirds of the total annual salary from the Department of Revenue’s Personal Property Tax Replacement Fund or the General Revenue Fund. The County will pick up the other one-third of the salary.
It is a pretty sweet deal for the County as presently, the county is responsible for 100 percent of the salary of the Sheriff.
Currently, the salary of the Greene County Sheriff is $69,392 while the salary of the Greene County State’s Attorney is $142,068.19.
The logical solution to some would simply be to reduce the salary of the State’s Attorney, thereby reducing the amount that would need to be paid to the Sheriff. However, that can’t be done.
The minimum salary that can be paid to a State’s Attorney is set by a statue and while a county can choose to pay their state’s attorney more, they cannot pay them less than the minimum. Greene County is paying their state’s attorney the minimum required salary.
So, the state’s attorney’s salary is set at $142,068.19 and the sheriff is to receive 80 percent of this salary, that will make his new salary come in at $113,654.55 an increase of $44,262.55 over his present salary.
The county’s portion of the sheriff’s salary will drop from the entire $69,392 to one-third of the salary which comes to $37,881.06, but does not include the IMRF, which is 22.15 of his salary, plus benefits.
This comes out to a savings of $31,510 for the county with the State picking up two-thirds of the salary.
But where the county gets into some financial trouble is with the deputy sheriff. Currently, the deputy sheriff receives 75 percent of the sheriff’s salary. Both the sheriff and the deputy sheriff are considered administrative positions and therefore not covered under the union.
Therefore, this 75 percent can be changed if the board so desires. Presently, if the deputy sheriff were to receive 75 percent of the sheriff’s salary under the new bill, his salary would increase from 52,044 to $85,240.91, an increase of $33,196.91.
This increase pretty much wipes out the $31,510.93 savings the county will see from the two-thirds reimbursement from the State on the sheriff’s salary, plus cost them almost $2,000 more.
Another thing that the board has expressed a concern about is how long the State will continue with the two-thirds reimbursement on the sheriff’s salary.
