Budget ‘statement’: Partch digs in heels on deputies’ raises

Two Whitman County sheriff’s deputies Monday received their scheduled pay raises, despite the disapproval of County Commissioner Greg Partch. Partch refused to sign routine orders authorizing the raises during Monday’s meeting of county commissioners.

The raises would take effect whether or not they were signed by commissioners, but Partch said he wanted to “make a statement.”

“I still think the deputies need to be a part of the solution,” said Partch, referring to the county’s budget straits.

County employees are moved up a classification system every 18 months. This rise through the system comes with a pay raise.

Deputies receive their step raises as part of a four-year collective bargaining contract signed in 2007.

Partch held the Sheriff to a particularly tight line when the county’s 2010 budget was set last year. He did so, he said, because deputies refused to offer to give back a portion of raises included in the 2007 contract.

“Mr. Partch is entitled to express his opinion,” Sheriff Brett Myers told the Gazette later in the day. “But at the same time it’s a contractual obligation commissioners have to meet.”

The county’s current year budget is now projected to finish $338,792 in the red after another $180,000 was added to the deficit Monday.

Commissioners Michael Largent and Pat O’Neill signed the deputies’ raise orders without balking.

“I’m not going to go around a signed contract to deny a man his wage increase,” said O’Neill, who took office in January 2009. “They signed the contract. If he didn’t like it, he didn’t have to.”

Myers said the raises would have no impact on the budget because they were already included in the department’s expense column.

He pointed out his office added revenue to the 2010 budget by contracting with other agencies to perform services for them, including housing federal inmates in the county jail.

In addition to the two deputies’ step raises, four other employees, union members in other departments, were given step raises Monday with Partch endorsing each one.

“It certainly is disheartening,” said Sheriff Myers. “Our office worked very, very hard to bring in additional revenue.”

Myers said Partch’s refusal to sign onto the raises gives him concern that he will not be able to fill a jail staff position that is expected come open later this year.

“The additional revenue we get in the jail would pay to fill that position and fund raises for everybody else,” said Myers. “Along with that revenue came contracts we have to fulfill. And we need people to meet those obligations.”