TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Hillsborough Deputies' Contract Standoff Continues

ADVERTISEMENT

By MIKE WELLS | The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 30, 2007

TAMPA - The one thing the two groups of deputies who faced off this morning outside the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office in Ybor City might agree on is that the agency is drastically understaffed.

There's little else.

Money, and how it's being spent, has divided the deputies who support Sheriff David Gee's administration and those who stood on the sidewalk with the West Central Florida Police Benevolent Association – the union that represents deputies and corporals.

Weeks ago, the sheriff's office and the union reached an impasse in contract negotiations, and raises for deputies have been in limbo ever since. A two-year contract between the union and the sheriff's office expired Sept. 30. Deputies continue working under the terms of the old contract.

At a 10 a.m. news conference, nearly 40 deputies and supporting union representatives held signs reading "deputies need your help" and "be our 911," saying they were turning to the public for help.

"We're frustrated," said Jim Spearing. "We've come to wit's end."

Spearing is a Tallahassee political consultant for the Florida PBA, and he led the news conference with a list of grievances. He said the sheriff's office is "very top heavy" in salaries and that most deputies make less than half the wages of their supervisors.

"There are colonels and majors making well over $100,000 a year," he said. "It's a case of too many chiefs and not enough Indians."

Spearing said the PBA is launching a public awareness campaign to reach residents and business owners about the staff shortage and why it affects their safety and their wallets.

The PBA also intends to make a careful analysis of the agency's spending, Spearing said. He questioned the need for what he called "lots of toys" in the sheriff's vehicle arsenal, specifically mentioning armored vehicles and airplanes.

"The money is going somewhere, and we're going to get to the bottom of where," Spearing said. "We're at a loss to see why the ranks [of deputies] are not a priority."

The sheriff's office says it offered deputies a nearly 5 percent pay increase but that union leaders balked when the offer didn't include allowing one of the chapter's two presidents, Deputy Mike Rouleau, to do union work while on duty. Rouleau is the chapter's law enforcement president.

Union representatives have said the sheriff's offer amounted to about a 1 percent raise for most people who have more than 10 years of service and that it's not enough to match the increase in the cost of living.

There are hundreds of vacancies in the agency, and the county's deputy-to-citizen number by percentage is well below the national average of about 2.4 percent, at about 1.6 percent, according to the sheriff's office. Gee intends to increase that to 1.7 percent by 2011.

Spearing said bumping up the staff roster by one-tenth of 1 percent isn't acceptable.

The sheriff's office is in the second phase of a five-year plan to hire 315 deputies. This is the single largest staffing increase in the agency's 160 year history, Chief Deputy José Docobo said.

That's not aggressive enough, Spearing said.

The union wants Gee be more aggressive in filling a shortage of deputies on the road and in the jails.

"I've been here 26 years, and I've never seen this, where detention is below staffing levels," said the chapter's detention division president, Cpl. Steve Dickey. "It's crucial. It's getting dangerous."

It takes about a year for new deputies to complete training and be ready to patrol the roads or jails alone. Both sides recognize this, Spearing said.

Pointing to co-workers standing behind him, he said, "These officers do not want to be surrounded by incompetents, either.

"We understand it's not going to happen overnight."

What the union does expect is for Gee to come forward with a plan "that is real and that specifies how we're going to get there," Spearing said.

Docobo said he finds it interesting that the union now is waving the manpower shortage flag as an issue.

"At no time in the negotiation process did they bring it up," he said. "The sheriff has been very clear since he took office that he needed more officers."

Tom Gonzalez, a lawyer who is a labor law consultant for the sheriff, said the union's latest cry of alarm is closely connected to the impasse and the fact that both sides are about to select a mediator.

Rouleau said the staff shortage wasn't part of the contract negotiation process.

"Today was totally separate from the negotiations," he said. "We're short over 100 deputies, and that makes it hard to do a good job out there."

Docobo questioned how concerned Rouleau could be about patrol shortages since he has worked just five days on the road this year after taking time off for medical reasons and then returning to desk duty.

Rouleau said Tuesday was his first day back on full patrol duty in District IV after undergoing knee surgeries in May and July.

"I'm 44 years old and my knees are bad," he said. "They like to take shots at me like that."

About two dozen deputies watched the news conference, standing several yards apart from those wearing black PBA T-shirts.

Gee's supporters called the protestors a "boisterous" minority within the agency.

"We're here to support our sheriff," Cpl. Jeff Massaro said. "We know he's trying to help us."

The problems facing the sheriff's office were not created by Gee's administration, but rather they were inherited, he said

Massaro said he would like to eliminate the PBA to give Gee a chance to fix the issues without his hands tied.

Cpl. Bill Hughes said the union is focusing on a singular issue rather than the problems faced by the department as a whole.

"I'd like a huge raise, too," he said. "But I know what's best for the agency."

Reporter Mike Wells can be reached at (813) 259-7839 or mwells@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT