Geary County Sheriff Dan Jackson is speaking out on county employee morale following remarks by Commissioner Trish Giordano earlier this week. Giordano said she had heard the rumors about the employee morale but noted that the commission has little contact with the employees. She said morale was based on their department heads, and if department heads aren't happy then the employees are not going to be happy.
Jackson noted his department is the largest in the county and the morale issues that are occurring are not because of something he is saying to the employees. "They are the result of what the employees see as a steady erosion of their benefits. " One year ago families could get a $500 deductible on their health insurance but now the minimum has increased to $1,500 per month. "That's a big cut in what is available to the employee during the year.
An eight-hour personal leave day has been removed and there is a push to go to paid time off. Jackson noted that will not work.
Jackson said employees have been working mandatory overtime in the jail for the past six months due to a shortage of personnel. "If they're called they cannot refuse to come in. They have to come in and work. With PTO they would lose all that time at the end of the year or a significant amount of it." Jackson added that employees are also upset about an effort to eliminate comp time.
"They're very upset about a payroll system that almost consistently for nine months now not paid all of our employees correctly. "The sheriff cited problems, for example, with correct pay for employees on the corrections floor for Veterans Day. He added it's causing the Department to spend thousands of dollars and man hours fixing mistakes with the Sheriff's Office payroll.
Jackson pointed to an employee task force in which employees would have a say in their benefits. "The problem is every time they voted no comp time or PTO, the leadership comes back with another plan and come back and present it again." The Sheriff said the employees in that office "are not stupid. They know when somebody is trying to ram something down our throat, which is what has been happening."
Jackson said employees are upset with county leadership thinking that they are smarter than the employees, "and trying to manipulate them into agreeing to do something that's not good for the employee."
Giordano pointed out in her comments that the county has installed an employee assistance program, has gotten wages up competitively, saved a 14% increase on insurance and has extremely good benefit packages.