Editorial: Arbitrator considered deputies’ contract in context

Maybe arbitration does work.

The ruling last month in a case involving Spokane County and the Spokane County Deputy Sheriffs’ Association recognizes, at last, the obvious differences in the local cost of living and that of counties used as comparables for pay-setting purposes, including Snohomish, Clark and Pierce on the West Side.

The result – a long time coming – was an award of a 2.5 percent wage increase for 2014, and 0 percent for 2012 and 2013.

The county also prevailed on changes in the deputies’ medical/dental plan, and turned back attempts to change policies covering sick leave cash-out and sell-back of unused vacation. Arbitrator Jane Wilkinson supported the deputies’ position on increased clothing allowance and rejected county efforts to change leave accrual rates and overtime.

But, most importantly, she considered what annexation has done to county revenues, and the disproportionate wage increases gained by the deputies, especially when benefit costs are included. Using 2012 base wages alone, Spokane ranks sixth among the six comparable counties. Add benefits, however, and a five-year deputy with an associate’s degree makes $38.50 an hour, second highest among the counties; 15-year deputies $40.92, also second highest, and 25-year deputies $44.98, highest in Washington. Rankings change only slightly for 2014, for deputies and sergeants.

“Spokane deputies would rank roughly in the middle of the comparable jurisdictions in pay, even without an increase during the current contract term,” Wilkinson wrote.

Yet Spokane has the lowest cost of living, lower even than Yakima County, and 24 percent lower than Snohomish County. It also has the most affordable housing, an element the deputies did not want used in calculating cost of living.

Meanwhile, thanks to the recession and annexations that took away property and sales taxes, revenues rose but 4 percent between 2007 and 2013 as expenditures climbed 6.6 percent, and the county’s payments into the PERS pension plan 69 percent. Dozens of county positions, including many in the Sheriff’s Office, have been unfilled or eliminated. To be fair, the manpower shortages increase overtime and shift changes, which puts more stress on everyone in the department. Still, they have brought down crime rates substantially, which is a credit to all.

Despite the demands, the Sheriff’s Office has had little problem keeping its personnel, losing only five deputies to the Spokane Police Department in 2014, which says something about the city’s level of compensation.

Kootenai County, which constantly loses deputies, found they earn 30 percent below the area average, just 18 percent if the city of Spokane is taken out of the equation. That’s how much Spokane pay distorts the market.

After years of trying by city and county officials to get other arbitrators to look at public safety compensation against a background of private pay levels and cost of living, the county may have achieved a breakthrough with Wilkinson, who has decades of experience in arbitration. The deputies association will appeal but, for the present, common sense has won.