County committee OKs corporal rank for jail staff

Proposal will need to go to finance committee for job description approval

The Taylor County Sheriff’s Department jail staff may soon get a new rank.

At the Oct. 13 law enforcement committee, committee members approved creating a new corporal position for the jail staff pending approval of a job description.

The county currently has jail sergeants who work under the sheriff and help supervise the jail staff and perform additional administrative duties. According to sheriff Larry Woebbeking, with the jail operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week there are times when he and the sergeants are not on duty. He noted that with the amount of turnover they have had with the jail staff, they have shifts with less-experienced staff who do not have a direct supervisor to ask questions of on-site all the time. He said that while the more “seasoned” staff are happy to provide guidance and assistance, they are ultimately at the same rank level as the other jailers and their guidance and advice may or may not be taken.

Woebbeking’s proposal with the corporal position is to have that individual serve during the overnight shifts when the sergeants are not on duty working in sort of a shift leader position with the authority to direct the other staff to do things. However, the position would not have other administrative or paperwork duties.

While the wage, as well as the job description will have to be approved by the county’s finance and personnel committee, the committee discussed a $2 per hour wage bump for whomever is selected for the position, coming out to about $4,160 per year. Committee chairman Lester Lewis noted that with the number of unfilled open positions available in the sheriff’s department there would not be an impact on the overall budget unless all those positions got filled.

Woebbeking agreed saying he was not asking for any increase in overall staffing and felt the additional costs of the position would be absorbed in their existing budget.

“Should you just hire another sergeant? Is this person going to appreciate doing that job and not getting the paid for it?” asked committee member Lori Floyd. She said it seemed that the person will be asked to do what a sergeant does.

Woebbeking said it would be more of a lead with the staff member who would be picked for it not having the administrative work of the sergeant. He says it gives them a point person to ask questions to on those shifts and have someone with some authority to make sure things are being done according to policies. He noted that across the state, the jail is where a lot of lawsuits against counties come from. “It is important to have some extra guidance in the mix,” he said.

“Some of our seasoned personnel now are giving a lot of guidance, but staff doesn’t have to listen. They can tell them to go jump in a lake,” Woebbeking said, noting that giving the seasoned staff some authority will allow them to take corrective action and to say “No, this is how you do that.”

As envisioned, the corporal would have limited disciplinary authority, but would instead report any issues to the sergeants and eventually to the sheriff for action.

In other business, committee members:   Expressed disappointment about the ambulance service and the slow pace being taken to get qualified applicants for Gilman and Rib Lake positions filled. “They are in breach of contract right now,” Lewis said, stating he did not know what the hold up has been. “We have had people signing up who are already trained, but who have not been approved by Wausau,” Lewis sad. There was discussion about a recent EMS response in Jump River where the crew was not staffed out of Gilman and the county dispatcher called out the Medford ambulance to go to Jump River, rather than calling out Sheldon, which would have had a far shorter response time. Woebbeking noted that the dispatcher in question has received corrective action.

  Received word that the fingerprint scanning machine was down and a replacement has been ordered at a cost of about $7,000. The current machine was purchased in 2015. The state court system does not accept anything but scanned fingerprints.

  Discussed concerns related to access to the communication tower at Forest Springs Camp and Conference Center. Access to the tower was recently blocked after the property owner had concerns about the work being done by a subcontractor hired to install fiber optic cable to the tower.

  Approved an ordinance change with fee increases to some jail and department- related costs. The changes will be sent to the Oct. 26 county board session for final approval.