Community Corrections Makes Case For Pay Increases
By David Slone
Times-Union
WARSAW — Kosciusko County Community Corrections started looking at restructuring the department’s salaries and pay scale in 2021.
On Thursday, Aug. 25, during their 2023 budget reviews, the County Council approved increases for Community Corrections’ director and staff.
Community Corrections Director Barry Andrew said, “We started the process … of researching job descriptions and pay wages probably back in June of last year. The team spent quite a few months researching surrounding counties … We went through and redid the job descriptions and tightened those up quite a bit.”
He said they sent a letter to the county’s wage committee in October 2021. In November, during a department head meeting, Andrew said they were told there was a process to getting job descriptions and wages reviewed. They did that, but there was a timing issue so the job descriptions and wages weren’t resolved for the 2022 budget.
For 2023, they talked with the county’s wage committee previously and provided a packet of information to the County Council on Thursday.
“The first page is a map that explains to you that our home detention officers do three jobs in one. They’re case managers, they’re field officers and they’re also intake officers,” Andrew said.
The map shows that in Kosciusko County, a Community Corrections officer makes $40,051 a year and the average case load is 15 to 25. In Noble County, the average case load is the same, but pay is listed as “probation pay scale.” A case manager in Whitley County makes $54,884 a year with an average case load of 45 to 50, while a field officer makes $45,620 with an average case load of “all participants.” A case manager in Marshall County makes $48,787 a year, while a field officer makes $30,240 a year. A field officer in Allen County makes $50,880 a year, while the case manager makes probation pay scale. In Fulton County, the case manager and field officers make probation pay scale.
“We want you to know and understand that our officers work really hard and, if you look at the surrounding counties, they have specific officers that do each specific duty, and I think we want you to be aware of that; we want you to be aware that our pay, when it comes to the surrounding counties, is significantly lower than what other counties are paying,” Andrew said.
He said he had an officer leave and go to Marshall County, receiving $8,000 more a year just to be a case manager. “No more on-call, no more home visits. Like he comes to work 8 to 4, sees his people and goes home. So I can’t say that I blame him for the decision he made,” Andrew said.
Officers at Kosciusko County Community Corrections are Indiana Law Enforcement Academy trained and are special deputies so they have been through the training for the Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Office. They maintain their minimum 24-hour training annually.
“They also provide the case management and they also do the intake work for the department, so our officers are extremely hard-working individuals and carry quite a load that other counties don’t do,” Andrew said. “We’ve been working really hard for a really long time and have done our homework really well for you guys to make a decision, hopefully today.”
He said he was super thankful for the work his staff does and wants to make sure the county pays them the money they’ve earned.
Another page of the packet explains the job duties from other surrounding community corrections programs. The third page explains the job descriptions for Kosciusko County that were updated.
The last page is the 2023 minimum salary schedule for probation officers from the Judicial Conference of Indiana. It lists the minimum annual salary for a probation officer’s base salary with no years of experience at $38,107; one year of experience, $41,021; two years, $45,634; and up from there, with over 20 years of experience with degrees to receive a minimum annual salary of $70,094.
Council Vice President Joni Truex asked if any of the counties just had intake officers. She was told some counties do have specific intake officers, like Wabash, Noble and Marshall Counties. They are full-time employees who do nothing but intakes.
Councilman Mike Long asked if they knew what the staff numbers were per county. He was told Noble County had four full-time case managers, two full-time and one part-time field officers and two intake officers, a full-time and a part-time.
Long then asked how many staff members did Kosciusko County’s Community Corrections have. Andrew said there was him and the two that joined him at Thursday’s meeting, two more home detention officers, a co-court case manager and the secretary, for a total of seven.
Councilwoman Kimberly Cates asked Andrew what would be the priority of his office.
“Keeping the people I have,” he responded. “Everything that we do as a team here is a priority. This boils down to county safety. It boils down to keeping the numbers in the jail down. It boils down to making sure our team is paid appropriately. This team – I’m not kidding when I tell you – these guys bust their chops on a daily basis, going above and beyond the call of duty and have done that for a long time. They’re a wonderful team to have and this county is lucky to have the team that we have here, doing the job that they do, so it’s all a priority.”
Long asked if they charged user fees, and Andrew said they did. The program is ran off a grant and user fees.
Council President Sue Ann Mitchell asked Andrew why he hasn’t asked for more people for his department.
He responded, “One reason we haven’t asked is because we don’t have any more physical room. We don’t have anywhere to put anybody. I don’t say that to be sarcastic about it, but even if I could have the money to pay another person, I don’t have any room to put them. That, in its own right, is a huge topic to talk about because if we want to bring somebody else on board, then we automatically have to talk about finding a new place to physically locate us.”
Later in the meeting, Prosecuting Attorney Dan Hampton said of Community Corrections, “Without Community Corrections, the criminal justice system has definite hurt, both on the jail population because it would increase the jail population, plus the rehabilitation measure is necessary. I can’t explain enough how important it is.”
He said they’ve been waiting since fall 2021 to get the job descriptions on parity with the other counties.
At the end of their day Thursday, the County Council voted unanimously to accept the wage committee’s recommendation about Community Corrections. That included: $79,763 annual salary for Andrew plus the 4% base increase for county employees for 2023; and a $1,500 increase to the base salary of the four home detention officers plus the 4% base increase; and no change to the secretary pay except for the 4% base increase. The salaries are retroactive to July 1, 2022.
Truex said Andrew is doing two jobs. He could have hired someone to come in and do half of his work, but he decided to do it himself, she said. Mitchell noted Andrew’s increase was about $10,000.
Mitchell said the money is collected through user fees and is not tax dollars.