Farris Happy About Raise, But Wants To See More

Putnam County Sheriff Eddie Farris said he’s happy about a $2,000 cost of living raise his employees will receive as part of the new fiscal year budget, but he would like to see more sometime down the road.

“I think at one point we looked at it, and not just the sheriff’s office, but maybe the county as a whole, we were losing like a quarter of our employees every 10 months,” Farris said. “That’s just too much for us, especially for a deputy who has to be trained up.”

The county budget committee said earlier this month that they would look at additional pay increases for county employees during next year’s budget process.

“Obviously we know it’s election year and some of those are going to be changing,” Farris said. “For the most part, I feel good about most of them that will be coming back to fulfill their promise of continuing that step in the right direction.”

Farris said luckily the sheriff’s office doesn’t have a lot of turnover in the deputy slot, but there is some in the jail.

“We certainly want to continue moving in the right direction to stop that and make sure we are retaining our employees and making them a life-long Putnam County employee,” Farris said.

As part of the new fiscal year budget, Putnam County law enforcement and public safety employees will receive a $2,000 cost of living raise and all other employees will receive a $1,800 raise.

“It certainly helps and all of the employees at the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office really appreciate that and we are grateful for what we got,” Farris said.