~by Tori Riley
Staffing issues of the Jefferson police department have brought the department to a situation where providing 24-7 coverage is extremely difficult. The department’s roster is full at eight. There are currently only five, and one of them is at the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA).
County attorney Thomas Laehn has referred to a potential “collapse” of the entire department and said it’s “on the cusp of a downward spiral.”
It’s a “huge concern” for county sheriff Jack Williams, as deputies are asked to assist with law enforcement in the city of Jefferson more often. He says he doesn’t have the manpower to continue that.
From the outside, it looks like Williams poaches JPD officers. Caleb Jans left the JPD for the sheriff’s office in February 2019. He was two years into a four-year contract with the city of Jefferson. The SO bought out his contract from the city so the city could recoup the cost of Jans’ training at the ILEA
Two JPD officers have crossed the hallway from the JPD to the SO in the past six months. Ashley Wilson was hired by the JPD in August 2019. She had no law enforcement experience or training; she started at an annual wage of $42,554. Eight months later she joined the SO with patrol officer experience but still not having attended the ILEA. Her annual wage jumped to $46,000.
Just last month JPD captain Heath Enns, second in command at the JPD, joined the SO. Because of his tenure and rank in the JPD, he took a pay cut in changing jobs. His departure prompted the current “huge concern.”
Williams says he hasn’t recruited the JPD officers, that they approach him asking for jobs.
It is within recent memory that Williams had a hard time filling deputy positions. He says now he has applications from two more JPD officers, waiting for a deputy position to open up.
Williams and the SO are the beneficiary of the county supervisors dealing with staffing issues with language that talks – dollars.
Sheriff’s deputies are in the second year of a three-year union contract that includes four wage increases. The contract went into effect July 1, 2019, with a 6 percent increase. The deputies received a 4 percent increase Jan. 1, 2020. They’ll get a 3 percent increase Jan. 1, 2021, and a 5 percent increase July 1, 2021. The contract expires June 30, 2022.
Somehow, the county found the money.
The deputies are represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).
So are JPD officers.
The city council has discussed hiring issues many times in the past few years, but hasn’t solved the problem.
It isn’t that the council hasn’t tried. In December 2018, the council okayed a student loan incentive for incoming officers with a college degree in criminal justice. The city agreed to pay $200 per month, up to $9,600 over a four-year contract, on student loan principle. A $2,000 up-front hiring bonus is part of the package.
The council hasn’t awarded larger than cost-of-living adjustments over the term of a contract – like the county did – claiming there isn’t money available.
So what’s the difference between the county and the city?
The difference is that on the county side, only the SO is represented by AFSCME. Secondary roads employees were represented by the Public Professional & Maintenance Employees until the recertification vote required by changes to Iowa collective bargaining laws in 2017. The county supervisors had no obligation to give similar wage increases to every employee.
All non-salaried city employees – police officers and street, sanitation, water, wastewater and parks/cemetery workers – are represented by AFSCME. They’re coming into the last year of a five-year contract approved in 2016. That contract includes a 2.5 percent wage increase each year.
Jefferson city administrator Mike Palmer doesn’t dispute that JPD wages are low compared to what’s paid in other towns of similar size. He says there isn’t money for higher police wages and, “what do you say to the other employees?” They’re all part of the same union. They all work under the same contract.
Without trying to claim that one job is more important than the other, a solution lies in changing the union landscape. If the union decertifies in its required vote before negotiating the next contract, the city would be able to agree to larger wage increases for police officers than for other employees. The county’s secondary roads employees haven’t gotten the same increases the sheriff’s deputies are enjoying.
Perhaps the city would agree not to fight an effort to re-organize using two separate unions, like the county had before secondary roads employees decertified the PPME. It would give the city more flexibility while both groups still had the (now minimal) benefits of a union.
It would probably help, too, if the council made law enforcement a priority. Code enforcement – cleaning up junk cars and dilapidated buildings – is on the council’s priority list, but staff wages isn’t. Palmer shared his survey of budget priorities for the fiscal year starting July 1, 2021, at the last city council meeting. Maybe it wasn’t on previous surveys because of having a union contract in place. I haven’t seen the survey for the coming year. If improving the salary schedule for the JPD isn’t on it, it should be.
The money part of the JPD’s woes doesn’t concern me as much as the small town politics involved in how the most recent chapter of the story has evolved.
Enns didn’t just resign from the JPD – he threw a fire bomb at the city with a six-page letter of resignation, a letter which provided the start of an exposé in another publication. The exposé told of an email Palmer had sent to the city council defaming police chief Mark Clouse. The email was leaked to Enns, and that was the final nudge he needed to leave the JPD.
I don’t doubt that Palmer sent the email to the council, and I don’t doubt he wrote the defamatory comments.
What we don’t know is who provided it to Enns. Only a limited number of people received it – council members and (presumably) the mayor. We don’t know the leak’s motivation. When you know staffing is a problem, why provide motivation for the second in command to leave? Why make the problem worse?
Was it the leak’s intention (and yes, it’s correct to write “his,” since the city council is entirely male these days) to ignite sentiment against Palmer? If that was the intent, what’s the end goal? How much drama will the city – and I’m referring to city residents, too – be drawn through until it quiets again? How many lives will be turned inside out?
What will the benefit be in the end?
The Rotary Four-Way Test is repeated at every meeting of 35,000 Rotary Clubs around the world. The first two questions in the test have bearing on most dealings in public and private life. “First – Is it the truth? Second – Is it fair to all concerned?”
I suspect the claim Palmer made about Chief Clouse isn’t true. I suspect it was an attempt to lay blame on one person for a problem that has its roots decades ago when AFSCME organized city employees.
I know it wasn’t fair to leak a council email to a city employee. Maybe the leak thought he was sharing the email in the name of transparency. Transparency is one thing – a very important thing to journalists – but fairness tops transparency.
There’s someone out there who wants to play hardball, who wants to make the job difficult for city administrator Palmer. He should identify himself before he lobs the next ball. How does a person respond to someone trying to undermine his work when the man is maneuvering in the shadows?
