Opinion ID: 888367
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Background of Sheriff and Deputy Sheriff Salary Calculations

Text: ¶ 10 The sheriff has the authority to adjust the deputy sheriffs' compensation within a particular county according to a rank structure in that county. Section 7-4-2508(2)(b), MCA. The following percentages associate with each rank in Lewis and Clark County: Investigator/Captain 90 percent Lieutenant/Probationary Investigator 88 percent Sergeant 86 percent Patrolman I 82 percent Patrolman II 78 percent Patrolman III 76 percent Patrolman Probationary 74 percent Generally, a sheriff is paid a base salary set by the county governing board, the statutory $2,000 salary supplement contained in § 7-4-2503(2)(b), MCA, longevity pay, and overtime compensation. The deputy sheriff is paid a rank based percentage of the combined sheriff's base salary and $2,000 supplement, plus longevity and overtime. ¶ 11 For many years, the Sheriff's Office of Lewis and Clark County and the Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Employee's Association (Association) had negotiated the longevity calculation as part of their collective bargaining agreement (Agreement). The Agreement covering the time between July 1, 2003, and June 30, 2005, provides the relevant guidelines and expectations for hourly and longevity pay of most of the sheriff's deputies. ¶ 12 The County previously included the sheriff's $2,000 statutory salary supplement in the calculation of deputies' salaries from July 1, 1998 to June 30, 2001. After June 30, 2001, however, the $2,000 supplement disappeared from the calculation of the deputies' salaries. This omission by the County prompted some deputies to file for back wages and the corresponding difference in longevity pay for the period from July 1, 2001, to June 30, 2004. The County modified the deputies' salaries for the period from July 1, 2004, through June 30, 2005, to include the sheriff's $2,000 supplement. ¶ 13 When the County modified the salaries to make up for the omission, it also revised the deputy longevity calculation. The County's Human Resources Department sent a memo to each claimant, announcing that it had changed its method of calculating deputy longevity and that it intended to apply the new method retroactively. The County previously had calculated deputy longevity using the minimum base annual salary correlating with the deputy's rank, but had not included the appropriate percentage of the sheriff's $2,000 salary supplement in the deputy's salary when calculating longevity. The County changed the deputy's longevity pay from being rank based to non-rank based. ¶ 14 The County began calculating longevity by taking one percent of the lowest minimum base annual salary allowed under the statute (seventy-four percent) for each year in the department. This revision gave all deputies the probationary patrolman's rank (seventy-four percent of sheriff's salary) for purposes of computing the minimum base annual salary. The County also maintained that the sheriff's $2,000 salary supplement should not be included in the calculation of the deputies' salary for purposes of calculating longevity.