Contract negotiations between Pierce County and the union that represents the rank-and-file of the county’s largest law enforcement agency, the Sheriff’s Office, are getting ugly.
Despite more than a year of bargaining, Shaun Darby, president of the Pierce County Deputy Sheriffs’ Independent Guild, says they are nowhere near reaching an agreement that includes fair compensation for deputies’ working conditions.
The guild wants a contract that puts deputies’ pay on par with other policing agencies in Pierce County to better recruit and retain deputies. Staffing levels at the Sheriff’s Office haven’t kept pace with the growth of the county’s population, census and county data shows. Without sufficiently competitive pay to attract more law enforcement officers to work for the Sheriff’s Office, Darby argues, deputies and Pierce County residents are less safe…