MACON, Ga. — Election Day is less than two weeks away, and one race on Bibb County ballots is for the sheriff's job.
This November, former GBI Agent-in-Charge JT Ricketson is challenging incumbent David Davis for the position. 13WMAZ sat down with both candidates to discuss top issues. We take a closer look at staffing shortage and pay for deputies.
For the last couple years, Davis has been outspoken on the matter--pushing the Bibb commission to take action.
Just last week, the long-awaited pay scale study was completed. It includes a recommendation to boost the starting pay of deputies to nearly $41,000. The goal is to try to implement the new pay scale in January, but it has to pass through commission first.
Before the county released some of the findings of this study, we spoke to the candidates about fixing the staffing shortage and pay issues.
Sheriff David Davis and JT Ricketson both say the Bibb County Sheriff's Office needs better pay to compete with other agencies in the area.
"We got to have a higher pay. We should be the go-to agency for middle Georgia. Our deputies should not be leaving and going to smaller counties," Ricketson said.
Davis said, "That can be a game-changer for us. If we could get the salaries up for an experienced deputy up to the $41 [thousand], $40,000 range. That would make us a higher-paid law enforcement agency than anything around here."
Davis says with higher pay, the sheriff's office will be able to recruit more deputies. "We want to continue to recruit. We have our signing bonus of up to $2,500 for people coming in. We hope the pay scale will make the starting salary more attractive."
Ricketson says pay isn't the only problem.
"What they're doing with overtime right now is a week-to-week and month-to-month. That is just kind of like the regular schedule now. People can only work so long before you have exhausted them," Ricketson explained.
"We make up a lot of that shortage with overtime. We've spent millions of dollars a year in overtime to make up for the deputies that are not there," Davis said.
Even the size of the shortage is a point of disagreement.
"There's 200 [short]. What they're doing with that is they're playing with the numbers. When Bibb County and Macon PD combined, they should have around 600 or so sworn officers, and what they're doing -- this is political," said Ricketson.
In response, Davis says he pulled the exact numbers. Right now, he says the sheriff's office is short 162 people, but he adds that they now have nearly 50 applicants.
"I think I've made comments to say we've been around a 100 short. You have to understand, for security reasons and things like that...we always know how many people we're short and how many people we need," Davis said.
Ricketson has a quick fix he says he could launch in his first month if elected -- hire back retirees.
He explained, "Take advantage of all their knowledge and experience they've got. Put them in a role where they're working part time for me, and I can take those deputies that are currently doing that and put them back out on the road."
Davis says it's not that easy -- he's tried it. "But many times, they want to be involved in what they want to do. Sometimes, we've hired some to work at the courthouse, and we need them to work at the jail, or other functions, and they're like, 'Well, you know, my wife...' 'I'm retired, I think I'll move on to something else.'"
Both candidates agree it has gotten more difficult to recruit people into law enforcement over the past few years.