The Plumas County Board of Supervisors and Sheriff Todd Johns have been arguing for months over how much Plumas County Undersheriff Chad Hermann should be paid. Their disagreements continued at the board’s Dec. 19 meeting in a contentious 45-minute discussion.
While nothing was resolved at the meeting, Board Chairman Greg Hagwood and Johns agreed to meet to negotiate a solution to the long-simmering dispute. They did, Hagwood told The Plumas Sun. He declined to share the details of their meeting but was optimistic. “I have every measure of confidence that a resolution has been reached,” he said.
Johns, who also spoke with The Plumas Sun after the meeting, said that unless something unexpected comes up, he is confident that an agreement can be reached by the second week of January. “I’m just trying to make things right for the undersheriff,” he said.
Hermann’s complicated salary status
Hermann has worked for the Sheriff’s Office for 29 years. He was a regular employee for most of that time and was appointed undersheriff in 2020. In June 2022 he accepted a contract that changed his status from a regular county employee. It was designed to adjust his salary to more closely match other county employees with comparable responsibilities.
The contract began at the time when supervisors approved raises for all county department heads. The undersheriff is not a department head position and was not included in those raises, which varied from 2.3 to 45 percent. The intent of the contract was to bring his wages closer to comparable department heads.
I’ve been pushed into a corner for 18 months.”
Chad Hermann, Plumas County undersheriff
Instead, the contract has left Hermann out of wage increases he might otherwise have received. When the supervisors approved an unprecedented 20 percent pay increase for sheriff’s employees on Oct. 10, Hermann was not included. Since then he has made less money than 12 of the 72 people he supervises when the department is fully staffed, Johns said.
After he accepted the contract in June 2022, Hermann told the county supervisors he has felt left out of discussion concerning his salary. He has reached out to multiple board members over an 18-month period, but it’s been “radio silence. I’ve been pushed into a corner for 18 months,” Hermann said.
Wage issues are countywide
Hermann’s salary is uniquely complicated but it signals a persistent issue with significant consequences countywide. In recent years low wages have driven many employees to leave the county workforce.
Nineteen of 26 department heads left their positions between 2020 and 2022, said County Administrative Officer Debra Lucero. She blamed a weariness stemming from a community in trauma; others blame low wages. Since June 2023, an additional six department heads have resigned.
Elected officials reacted to 15 years with no salary adjustments with widespread resignations over the last decade. Hagwood, the former sheriff, was one of them. After 31 years with the sheriff’s office, 12 as sheriff, he had reached the maximum pay level. He resigned to run for a seat on the county Board of Supervisors, where he could impact salaries and other issues countywide. In March 2022, Hagwood led the supervisors to tie the salaries of the county’s six elected officials to the annual consumer price index adjustments. That added 10 percent to their base wages, said Lucero. The supervisors had previously made that adjustment to their own wages.
The supervisors’ response to this destabilizing loss of personnel has continued in a piecemeal fashion. They approved the 20 percent across-the-board wage hike for sheriff’s employees in October under public pressure.
Negotiations for Hermann continue
To resolve the undersheriff’s wage dispute, Hagwood proposed raising Hermann’s wage from $53.13 an hour to $67.03 an hour. That would comply with a historic county precedent that the undersheriff’s wage should be 7 percent below the sheriff’s wage, currently $72.07 an hour. Then, Hagwood said, they should eliminate the contract, returning Hermann to employee status but at a higher pay level.
“This man is exposed to liability and dangers that no other department head faces.”
Todd Johns, Plumas County sheriff
Johns found his proposal “unacceptable.” He argued for retroactive pay during the months that Hermann was “stuck” under the contract. “He has training and experience, and he supervises far more employees than most department heads who are making far more money. This man is exposed to liability and dangers that no other department head faces,” Johns said.
A wide-ranging discussion ensued that included veiled threats of litigation and warnings from Interim County Counsel Sara James, who cautioned several times that if the discussion continued it should be held in closed session and agendized for another time.
“There’s got to be a simpler way of resolving this,” Hagwood said.
How the supervisors settle Hermann’s salary dispute could continue their attempt to address the broader issue of wages countywide. Hagwood and Johns each reported a commitment to bringing the resolution they reached privately to the supervisors in January.