The Park County Sheriff’s Office is in a good place with its staffing, and commissioners want to keep it that way.

At their Oct. 7 meeting, commissioners voted 3-1 to allow the department to replace a detention deputy who recently resigned. Only Commissioner Lloyd Thiel was opposed, reiterating that he agreed to raise pay in an otherwise trimmed budget this year with the thought that a stricter hiring freeze would be maintained; Thiel has made the same comments when other departments have sought to fill positions since the budget was approved in July.

However, the other commissioners were OK with allowing the hire, noting the position was included within the department’s already whittled-down budget.

“I don’t want to borrow trouble before we have to,” Commissioner Kelly Simone said. “I would feel better that they have the staff, and it’s budgeted.”

However, Thiel raised the specter of the potential need to make more cuts next year, if property taxes are cut again.

“Just because it’s in your budget, I’m not totally in favor of doing this, knowing what could be coming next year,” he told the sheriff.

Sheriff Darrell Steward agreed that he’d rather cut now than have to fire an employee next year due to more budget cuts. 

The department is not in dire straits at the moment. Steward said he initially thought two deputies at the Park County Detention Center would be leaving at roughly the same time, but one is now delaying his exit until next summer.

Being they’re down six or seven people would create a dire situation, Steward indicated, but being down one isn’t even enough to worry about having to approve more overtime. 

Undersheriff Andy Varian said the department is in a very good place with personnel, crediting the recent raises approved by the county for retaining staff. 

“This last year has been very good,” Varian said.

Just under 90% of the staff is fully trained and certified and the undersheriff would like to surpass 90%. He also said that, with the time it takes to get a new hire to that point, he’d prefer to hire now instead of waiting. After a rigorous hiring process, deputies train for months before heading to Douglas to go through the Wyoming Law Enforcement Academy.

“It’s eight months to be fully ready,” Varian said. “If we keep people, it’s a lot less money for training.”

As former sheriff and current Commissioner Scott Steward noted, the sheriff’s office is the rare department that generally takes a few months just to hire someone in the first place — meaning even if they didn’t want to replace the current opening, they’d need to soon begin work on filling the position that’s expected to become vacant next summer.