By Jen McCaffery
The Virginian-Pilot
PORTSMOUTH, Va. — Sheriff Bill Watson informed city officials Wednesday that he may suspend some services that his inmates provide the city because officials have yet to respond to his demand for a raise for his deputies.
Watson sent an e-mail to City Manager Kenneth Chandler, several City Council members and a city department head informing them that he had talked to staff members about the possibility of shutting down the city’s inmate work crews on Monday .
“At this moment I have not received any word, in writing, from City Council of their intentions " about a pay increase, the e-mail states.
The note follows up on a comment Watson made at a Dec. 16 council meeting.
Council members that night affirmed their intention to provide a $2.3 million public safety retention plan in the upcoming budget year, which begins July 1. Their aim is to bring police officers’ and firefighters’ salaries up to the region’s average.
While Watson commended raises for police and firefighters, he told council members they had until Wednesday to agree to improve deputies’ pay or the sheriff’s office would stop providing the $5 million in services he said his office provides the city for free.
Vice Mayor Bill Moody Jr. pointed out that the recommendations for the public safety retention plan were the result of a consultant’s study of public safety salaries across the region. By contrast, he said, a raise for deputies would result from “being bullied.”
Moody said he thought the work crews provide good therapy for the inmates and benefit citizens as well. “I hate to see their services used as leverage to try and get higher salaries for deputies,” Moody said.
Watson did not return a call for comment to his cell phone Wednesday evening. His spokeswoman, Lt. Karin Johnson, said Watson was not threatening the council.
But she said Watson’s department is facing state cuts and has been informed that the city manager’s office would like to reduce the department’s budget in the upcoming budget year.
Meanwhile, the department also has faced rising food and medical costs at the jail.
Further, Watson is determined not to cut back on services to residents , Johnson said.
About 45 inmates provide services such as picking up trash, repairing and washing city vehicles, and moving office furniture as part of the City Jail’s work crew, Johnson said.
But the jail is understaffed, she said, and the sheriff might have to move deputies into those positions.
Moody said the sheriff’s deputies are state, not city, employees such as the police and firefighters. The city does provide some supplemental funding to the sheriff’s office, however.
Moody anticipated that city officials will discuss the pay issue with the sheriff as a personnel matter.
Councilman Charles B. Whitehurst Sr. said Wednesday evening he had not seen the e-mail yet and declined to comment.
Copyright 2009 The Virginian-Pilot