Tim Ryan, tryan@wolfrivermedia.com
Shawano County jailers will begin working a new schedule after the first of the year that will mean longer days but more days off; a change that Sheriff Adam Bieber hopes will improve morale and stem the growing trend of correctional officers leaving the county for better jobs elsewhere.
It’s one of two initiatives Bieber plans to implement in 2016, the other being body cameras for all county deputies.
The body cameras might be a harder sell at first, as Bieber acknowledges there is some skepticism coming from the deputies, and the cost will require County Board approval of the additional expense.
However, the new jail schedule, which will go into effect Jan. 4, is solely under Bieber’s control.
He said it was a team decision arrived at with Jail Administrator Greg Trinko and jail staff, and reached after consulting with other law enforcement agencies and jails in the state.
Bieber, who took over the sheriff’s department in January, said there was “one glaring problem” in the department that needed to be addressed, and that was at the jail.
“We’d been losing employees pretty frequently,” he said.
Bieber said the jail lost three employees in 2013, six employees last year, and 12 so far in 2015.
He said the reasons varied, from other jails that paid more to people hired from outside the area who would leave when a job in their hometown opened up.
The primary reason seemed to be the current work schedule of six days on and three days off, he said.
That works out to only one weekend off a month, which Bieber said was a problem, especially for younger correctional officers who value spending time with their families.
Bieber said the new schedule will cut down on sick days, vacation days and overtime.
Jailers, meanwhile, will gain an additional 61 days off per year, he said.
Many of the jailers were already working 12-hour shifts because of staffing shortages, Bieber said, and often weren’t being compensated with any overtime.
Some of the issues were caused by the state’s adoption of Act 10, which imposed sweeping changes covering government employees and wiped away most union protections. Correctional officers are not unionized.
“Our jailers have lost some of their benefits since Act 10 and the County Board took away some incentives,” Bieber said. “I really believe they should give some of those incentives back.”
Under county rules, jail employees have to work more than 170 hours in a month before they see any overtime pay.
“A lot of our employees were being forced to work 12 hour shifts at straight time,” Bieber said. “That was frustrating for some people. Morale is down.”
Under the 12-hour schedule, jailers will work two days in a row, will be off for two, work a weekend, then have two days off, work another two days, and then have the weekend off.
“It breaks up the monotony of a six-day week and they’ll have every other weekend off,” Bieber said, adding the change will make it easier to market the job to prospective new employees.
Even with the county’s limits on overtime pay, the staffing shortage at the jail has resulted in $190,000 in overtime so far this year, according to Bieber.
“I really truly believe that, with this new schedule, overtime is going to be pretty much non-existent,” he said.
Bieber said the new schedule was not initially accepted by the jailers.
“When we started talking about making the change, I can tell you it was not a very popular idea,” he said.
However, according to Bieber, now that most of the questions about how it would work have been answered, “they’re anxious to get working on it.”
The change will also mean nine jailers on duty at one time, instead of the current five, which will provide more security and allow jail sergeants to spend their time supervising rather than taking on jailer duties, Bieber said.
The other initiative Bieber plans for 2016 is a little less certain.
Bieber hopes to outfit all county deputies with body cameras, which are becoming increasingly standard for law enforcement around the country.
The Shawano Police Department, where Bieber was an officer before becoming sheriff, already uses them.
“It protects the liability of officers and protects citizens’ rights, too,” Bieber said. “It’s a win-win in both realms.”
Bieber said studies have shown that complaints against officers have gone down when officers wear body cameras.
“It’s not that we have a big volume of people complaining about our deputies, but we just want to make sure that we’re there and we’re ready for that kind of stuff,” he said.
It’s estimated that it could cost $10,000 to outfit every deputy with a body camera, and have a few spares on hand in case one breaks down.
The cameras would be mandatory, and deputies would have to switch them on and off when needed.
Bieber said the department is crunching the numbers on the best available options and would bring a proposal to the public safety committee and then the County Board for approval.
The cost is not in the department’s budget, so the County Board would have to approve the additional expense.
The proposal also faces the hurdle of being accepted by deputies.
Bieber said reaction to the idea has been mixed.
“Some positive, mostly negative,” he said.
Bieber said his reaction at the Shawano Police Department was also negative at first.
“They’re suspicious, and so was I when the city went to body cameras,” he said. “You don’t know what administration’s intent is. You’re always worried that they’re going to sit and look through your videos and try to find ways to fire you or get you in trouble, and that’s not the case.”
Bieber said he became very comfortable wearing a body camera and believes deputies will, too.
“It was that way with the officers. Now, they see the benefit of having them on and it will be the same way here,” he said. “It’s just going to take them a little bit to get used to it and use it properly.”