Sheriff’s Office Spending Goes to 11!
Before reading this article, we encourage you to read an article over at the Oregon Dailey titled “Deschutes Co Sheriff’s Office asks for largest tax increase in years.”
The article reports a back and forth between commissioner Phil Chang (love him or hate him) and Sheriff Shane Nelson (love him or hate him) during a meeting where Nelson is asking the budget committee to raise the tax rate to maximum allowed
- Phil Chang: “Being able to support requests for needed services and strategic investments has to come with foresight and good financial planning,”
- Shane Nelson: “And you have that. And if you are implying that we don’t, I take serious question with that”
As you continue reading this story, ask if Sheriff Nelson and his management team have shown “foresight and good financial planning” as Nelson vehemently claims doing so in his response to Mr. Chang.
Now let’s dig into the details, and forgive us for such a long article. There is a lot to cover!
Who can forget the scene from “This is Spinal Tap” where guitarist Nigel Tufnel shows off an amplifier whose volume knobs are marked from 0 to 11? Great movie. Today we are not talking about guitar amplifiers. Today we are talking about how the Sheriff’s Office leadership has turned it up to 11 when it comes to spending your hard earned cash.
It’s great news for them, but not so much for you. You see property taxes rise up 4–10% this fall due to new voter-approved bonds and the sheriff’s office rate rising to the maximum authorized level. Don’t believe us? Then read about it on KTVZ who we blatantly lifted the numbers from
“So what has the leadership at the Sheriff’s Office been spending our money on?” You ask expectantly and with a horrible sinking feeling in your stomach — No that isn’t the bean and cheese burrito you ate late last night.
Excellent question! Let’s see if we can shed some light on the subject.
CONTRACTORS
Let’s start with two outside investigators hired by Sheriff Shane Nelson. They are Timothy Moore and Matthew Ellington. Nelson has leaned heavily on Moore and Ellington to conduct his many internal investigations. We’d say so considering he has spent over $430,000 on their services since taking office! Unfortunately, folks familiar with their investigations, including multiple lawyers who have sued the agency, say their work is unreliable and incomplete. We’ve even heard they investigate to get the result Nelson wants allowing him to then throw up his hands and say the result was arrive at by outside investigators.
So $430,000 out the door and crappy work in return. Sounds like an awesome deal… for Nelson.
It should be noted Moore has conducted 17 internal investigations for Sheriff Nelson since 2015, and in that time Moore has been paid at over $315,500.
Since 2019, Ellington has received over $115,700 for doing nearly identical work as Moore, according to itemized invoices, despite not being a licensed investigator.
In 2021 alone, Moore and Ellington have billed the county more than $163,000..
We understand that Deschutes County Legal recently sent a “Cease and Desist” notice to Sheriff Nelson demanding he immediately stop hiring outside contractors. We speculate the alarming decline in the Sheriff’s Office reserve fund may in part have motivated this notice.
As of the writing of this article Nelson has refused to sign the Cease and Desist notice
(Contractors working at the Sheriff’s Office is an extensive topic which we will be discussing in a subsequent article)
LAWSUITS
Since 2015, Deschutes County has paid almost $3.5 million to defend and settle claims against Nelson and the Sheriff’s Office.
During that time the sheriff’s own employees have filed at least 25 complaints against him and his office, portraying a law enforcement agency where women are sidelined and intimidation is routine. In 2021, Deputy Crystal Jansen won a $527,000 settlement of a federal discrimination lawsuit against Sheriff Shane Nelson alleging sex discrimination and other illegal job practices.
Keep in mind, the above number doesn’t include the ongoing $2.5 million dollar lawsuit brought against Sheriff Nelson by former Captain Daron McMaster, which is going to be a doozy, But hey Deschutes County is self insured so you can enjoy coughing up the cash if Nelson loses.
Maybe the jury will find Sheriff’s Nelson’s conduct toward McMaster to be malicious, as they did in the Kozowski trial, and hit him personally with another $10,000 in punitive damages. Maybe Deschutes County will be kind enough to step up and again have the taxpayer pay the damages awarded against Nelson. Time will tell.
OVERTIME
11/12/2023 EDIT ***
On Saturday, the Bend Bulletin released an article titled “Here’s what Bend-area public employees were paid last year” This article provides access to the salaries of all employees in Deschutes County and the City of Bend.
Upon reading it, we noticed a discrepancy between the salary numbers we report below from OpenPayrolls and those from the Bulletin article.
We have also learned employees may sell back vacation time which may inflate their salaries for that time period. That said, we have also noticed some errors in the Bulletin data. For example, Brooke Van Der Zweip was a Lieutenant and not a deputy as reported by the Bulletin. So at this point who knows what is right.
What we do know is overtime is out of control at the Sheriff’s Office and we end this edit with a quote from the Bulletin article:
“Those in the public safety field also accrued the bulk of overtime pay… Thirteen of the top 25 overtime earners work for the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office… Around $2.5 million, or 77%, of Deschutes County’s more than $3.2 million in overtime pay last year went to the sheriff’s office.”
*** END EDIT
By definition an exempt employee receives a fixed salary generally not subject to reduction based on the quality or quantity of work performed. (See Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industry — Salaried Exempt Employees.)
So exempt employees, such as lieutenants, should not be eligible for overtime. Seems clear right. Yeah… not so fast.
Lieutenants (and above) at the Sheriff’s office do receive a salary even if they work fewer hours in a pay period; however, they also receive overtime if they work more hours. This is unlike their hourly counterparts such as patrol or corrections deputies, who are paid strictly by hours worked.
So the leadership at the Sheriff’s Office gets the best of both worlds and we ask: Is it fair to the rest of organization?
Digging a little deeper reveals that Sheriff’s Office lieutenants feature very prominently in the top 20 highest paid county employees
In fact, we counted 11 Sheriff’s Office employees in the top 20 and out of those 11, 8 are lieutenants!
In fact the total salaries paid to these 8 intrepid administrators is a whopping $1,482,974. That’s a lot of happy meals folks.
By looking at open source data and considering a base pay range for lieutenants ranging from $120,000 to $170,000 per year, it can be estimated that in 2022 alone, the top eight highest paid lieutenants earned from $200,00 to over $500,000 in overtime pay alone.
Again, this is just the overtime range for the top eight highest paid lieutenants, and doesn’t include the rest of the leadership team. So it is probably even higher.
(Thanks and credit to the tipster(s) who sent in this information along with a whole bunch of calculations that hurt our small brains, so if they are wrong don’t blame us.)
But the overtime does not stop there. We are told overtime has been out of control in both the patrol and correction divisions for at least a couple of years. Due to poor staffing, both patrol and corrections deputies regularly work overtime shifts with supervisors sending out multiple emails a week asking for deputies to work overtime.
Never mind the longterm impact and risks this introduces to both public safety and the health and wellbeing of employees. In fact, It is not unusual for administrative personnel, such as lieutenants, to work a jail deputy shift while making the overtime rate at a their salary. Nice work if you can get it.
This appears to be the result of years of poor planning and an inability to hire the required number of good employees. We acknowledge that law enforcement is not the most attractive career in the current social climate; however, there are still plenty of excellent candidates nationwide, not to mention the opportunity to lure experience lateral employees from other agencies. What it takes is a management team with creativity and a measure of forward thinking in order attract such employees to the agency.
To be very clear: We absolutely do not object to overtime pay where it makes financial and organizational sense. Furthermore We most definitely do not blame anyone at the Sheriff’s Office, be they managers or line workers, for taking advantage of legitimate and fiscally responsible overtime opportunities.
Where we squarely lay the blame is at the feet of the Sheriff’s Office command staff and financial management team who ought to know better and who, at the end of the day, have a duty to be fiscally responsible with tax payer money.
GOLF CARTS
The golf cart saga started with the purchase of two golf carts that were then heavily customized by the Sheriff’s Office automotive unit. Given the extensive modification such as the addition of “mag” wheels, lithium ion batteries, lights and sirens etc. Our wild guess at the total equipment costs would be over $15,000 each — excluding labor.
We have it on good authority that a god awful number of labor hours were spend by the automotive unit on the custom work. I’m sure they were thrilled given they are already overworked keeping the Sheriff’s Office active fleet in working order. But priorities right?
Not satisfied with just the two golf carts, it seems Nelson and Bailey decided it would be just the most fantastic idea to buy a two more (we have heard it might be three.) You do the math. It’s just your money, and they can always get more of it, right?
The reality is that the Sheriff’s Office could perhaps look into renting golf carts for the few times a year it needs them. There is no need for this kind of exorbitant and reckless spending.
“SLUSHYMOBILE”
We’ve gone on and on about the slushy mobile, so we wont’ delve into the gory details here. You can read all about it in “Slushygate & The Tactical Slushy Machine”. We will however provide a quick summary:
- Sheriff’s Office spends thousand of dollars on a slushy machine, because why not?
- Lieutenant Joe Deluca thinks it would be a great idea to mount it to one of the golf carts. Sheriff Nelson and Captain Bailey agree.
- The poor overworked folks at the automotive unit get stuck with a bunch of totally unnecessary work attaching the slushy machine and a generator to one of the golf cars
You can’t make this stuff up. and it is all just so exhausting.
“CAFE DESCHUTES”
There is a brand new free food program that launched a month or so ago. This program allows deputies to order delectably delightful meals via a phone app upon which a new menu is posted each week or, should the mood strike them, folks may visit “Cafe Deschutes” a chic new popup inside the jail employees’ kitchen where food, drinks, and snacks may all be ordered for free.
We thought there was no such thing as ‘free’? Oh yeah we forgot, you are all paying for it. That counts as free right?
That said, this “cafe” is at the Sheriff Office main campus, where coincidentally much of the leadership works. Many deputies actually work in other districts and so this perk will likely be of limited use to them. Go figure.
We have also received several messages from folks who have questioned why deputies making over $100,000 per year need to also be provided free lunches funded by the taxpayer.
Again we ask where is the money for this new recurring expense coming from? Where did the money for the capital costs for equipment and other fixed assets come from?
Let’s look at just one example: We understand so far in 2023 alone, over $28,000 was spent at Curtis restaurant supply. Wouldn’t you love to see that invoice? Yet this invoice is just one fixed cost invoice. Where are the rest of the expenses? Not spread across a bunch of expense accounts so they are hidden from view we hope?
Of course this is all couched under the banner of “wellness of the force”. It’s a lot like politicians telling you their pork filled legislation is “for the kids”.
LA PINE SUBSTATION COMMERCIAL KITCHEN
Captain Bailey authorized equipping a commercial kitchen in the La Pine Substation which is usually occupied by no more than 4 or 5 staff;. This includes a commercial food preparation counter and food storage unit, a commercial beverage container, and a high end Blackstone grill. Cleary these items cost thousands of dollars.
If you want the gruesome details be sure to read our thoroughly entertaining article “The BBQ Boys”.
FITNESS TRACKERS
The purchase of thousands of dollars worth of WHOOP health and fitness trackers was approved to be handed out to deputies and administrators alike, so they may wear them both on and off duty. Nothing says I love you more than a tracker monitoring your every breath and heartbeat 24x7x365.
We understand there are significant annual recurring costs for the monitoring service for these devices. At this time the program is apparently in a pilot phase. Hopefully it will remain that way.
We would love to know where the money to buy these trinkets is coming from or how the gathered tracker data is being used by the information technology monolith caring team of health and medical experts within the Sheriff’s Office. We would welcome clarity on both topics.
That said, we would not be inclined to wear any device given to us by an employer, let alone one that’s an law enforcement agency, having the ability to monitor and track our personal health or location data — Be it during work or after work hours. That’s just plain creepy.
IN SUMMARY
Where is all the money for these programs coming from and how much are they costing the taxpayer? Surely the public has the right to know?
We have heard worrying whispers the Sheriff’s Office is blowing through its cash reserves faster than a Kardashian on a shopping spree.
The publicly claimed numbers provided by Sheriff’s Office show reserves plummeting from just under $19 million at the beginning of 2021 to just over a [projected] $13 million by the end of 2023. Are those public numbers even up to date or accurate? We have our doubts.
This brings us to our next point and one we have previously made: Where is Sheriff’s Office Business Manager Joe Brundage? He appears to be the only financial professional on the Sheriff’s staff and we question whether he has completely lost sight of his fiduciary duty to the tax payers?
Unfortunately, if Brundage hasn’t the intestinal fortitude to stand up to Sheriff Nelson and other members of the command staff, then we fear there is likely an ongoing financial free for all at the Sheriff’s Office.
To bolster our case, we again turn toward Sheriff Nelson going hat in hand to the county Budget Committee to raise his office’s property tax rate to the maximum allowed level, citing inflation and other factors.
How can the Sheriff, in good conscience, go before the tax payer and demand they raise his office’s property tax rate to the maximum allowed, when it is without question his office’s current spending is, frankly, reckless.
Lastly, there is a small conspiratorial voice in our heads wondering if this rampage through the cash reserves may be a ploy to make things appear dire to both the county commissioners and voters, thus making it easier to request a new or increased tax levy in the near future.
Perhaps we are we being too cynical, Machiavellian or downright evil in our thinking?
We imagine that there are folks at the Sheriff’s Office who think all these “freebies” are just great, but we have to believe that there are many more who might feel uncomfortable with the ongoing spending and wonder what exactly is going on. That is certainly our sincere hope.
At the end of the day, the Sheriff’s Office is graced with receiving stable funding thanks to the generosity of Deschutes County voters and taxpayers and the hard work of then Sheriff Les Stiles.
It is incumbent upon Sheriff Nelson and his leadership team to not only treat this generosity with the utmost respect and gratitude it deserves but to also preserve the legacy of Sheriff Stiles who is much respected and beloved in the county.
We argue if the current fiscal recklessness is not stopped immediately, it is quite possible the funding landscape will dramatically change in the future, much to the detriment of the agency.
Follow us on Facebook
