Bedford sheriff blasts commissioners

Office struggles to fill posts due to health care plan, low salary

BEDFORD -- A meeting of the Bedford Board of Commissioners quickly got out of hand on Tuesday morning after county Sheriff Wayne Emerick Jr. addressed the board over long standing concerns about deputy pay.

According to Emerick, his department has experienced significant and persistent staffing issues due to low pay and the lack, for years, of an affordable appropriate family health care plan.

The department is down to two full-time deputies and six part-time deputies, who earn $16 per hour during the 19-week mandatory training period and $17 once they complete their state certification, he said.

His department can support a total of nine full-time officers, so it is currently understaffed, Emerick said.

"I have lost 35 deputies since I took office," Emerick said.

It costs $12,000 to train a new deputy in the state law enforcement academy, according to Emerick, so the department has "wasted" $420,000 during his tenure.

It takes another $22,000 in Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency funding to house and feed each deputy during their nearly five-month training period, which is $770,000 in additional "wasted" money, Emerick said.

This process has cost Pennsylvania taxpayers a total of $1,190,000 over two years, Emerick said, which has caused "great harm" to the sheriff's office.

Another facet of the staff retention problem is the loss of institutional knowledge within the department, such as weapons or Taser instructors, which require additional time and money to retrain, Emerick noted.

Since the department is so understaffed, deputies may be in danger due to a lack of available manpower to safely serve court-mandated protection from abuse and/or arrest orders, Emerick said.

This means that the department has less manpower to dedicate to crime-prevention efforts such as drug abuse task forces and educational programs for local schools, Emerick said.

"The problem with recruitment is the pay," he said.

The sheriff's office has received 148 applications for available deputy positions since November 2023, Emerick said, but has not been able to make any new hires due to the "meager" pay.

According to Emerick, the high cost of county employee family health insurance is another obstacle to prospective deputies, since it costs about $2,000 out of pocket per month.

"Retention has been hampered by commissioners by not offering the same bonuses to the current deputies as for the new hires, which was $1,000," Emerick said.

At that point in his address to the commissioners, Emerick reached the end of his three-minute public comment period, and board chairman Mike Stiles told Emerick his time was up.

"I'm going to keep talking," Emerick said, while Stiles repeatedly told Emerick he had exceeded his allocated comment time.

"I am going to talk to the taxpayers, I am not the public, I am a working county elected sheriff and I am going to address the commissioners and the taxpayers, they have a right to know this," Emerick yelled over Stiles, who said that the board would adjourn if he continued.

Stiles then called a temporary recess for the meeting, and all three commissioners left the conference room while Emerick continued speaking.

"Since 2020, I have consulted with prior and current commissioners over the pay issues, and over the issues with hiring and recruitment of new employees, and yet nothing is done," Emerick said to empty chairs at the board table.

"Since 2008, the department has seen over 100 deputies come and go at great expense to the taxpayer, yet the culture of hiring has not changed," he said.

Emerick then asked the public to call the commissioners to "demand" a living wage for his deputies and to "quit wasting taxpayers' money."

The commissioners have been "unprofessional," and have "treated me with discontent," Emerick said as the commissioners reentered the room.

At that point, an audience member shouted questions at the commissioners, questioning why they left the room while Emerick was speaking.

In response, Stiles asked for a motion to adjourn the meeting for 30 minutes, which was given by board Secretary Deb Baughman and seconded by Vice Chair J. R. Winck.

The audience member continued yelling while the commissioners exited the room for a second time.

Stiles reminded the audience of the board's three-minute comment period limit once the commissioners resumed the meeting half an hour later.

"The board of commissioners understands Sheriff Emerick's concerns about the deputy staffing issues," Stiles said, reading from a printed statement.

According to Stiles, the pay rate for deputies is set by the county employee union contract, which established the pay rate via a third-party arbitrator when an agreement could not be reached during the previous negotiation session in 2022.

The arbitrator granted a 18.5% pay increase to deputies in the award, Stiles said, which increased the hourly rate from $13.50 to $16, which includes a $1 per hour raise upon completion of state law enforcement certification, Stiles said.

The board has met with Emerick to discuss the issue "multiple times," Stiles said.

"We offered to provide the same package and rates as the other county employees, but the union said no," Stiles said. The board also offered a $3,000 temporary wage stop-gap sign-on bonus, which was also refused, he said.

The union contract is up for renegotiation next year, Stiles said, and the board will "do what we can to address the issue at this time."

During a brief press conference given by Emerick after the conclusion of the meeting, he reaffirmed his plea for a "living wage" for his deputies, saying that an hourly rate of $18 to $20 would be appropriate and in-line with what Somerset County sheriff's deputies earn.

In other business, the board approved a county-wide ban on open fires in order to prevent brush fires in light of the drought conditions felt throughout the region.

This burn ban came after a written recommendation was submitted to the board by a Department of Conservation and Natural Resources forest officer earlier this summer, Stiles said.

Since recent rain has alleviated some of the worst drought conditions in the county, Stiles said, he expects the ban will be lifted in the near future.