Campaign for Better Pay May Work Against Officers

Already facing a possible strike by one employee group, Ventura County supervisors are being hammered in an aggressive media campaign launched by sheriff’s deputies also seeking better pay and benefits.

But two weeks into a $40,000 barrage that includes ads in newspapers, radio and television, a public opinion poll and a financial audit, the deputies’ hardball crusade to win over the public may be backfiring.

Supervisors are keeping track of calls on the issue and all five say constituents are strongly urging them to move cautiously on granting any raises or expansion in benefits for the 750 deputies.

Callers seem most alarmed about the union’s demand for a benefit that would allow a 50-year-old deputy with 25 years’ service to retire and receive a pension check that equals 75% of his or her active pay, supervisors say.

“I’ve gotten about 15 calls and some e-mails,” said Supervisor John Flynn of Oxnard. “One or two at most have said you need to work with the deputies. But the rest are saying, ‘Look, retiring at 50 years old? Boy, you don’t find any carpenters retiring at that age. You don’t find anyone retiring at that age except rich people.’ ”

Callers are saying the same thing in the law-and-order east county districts represented by board Chairman Frank Schillo and Supervisor Judy Mikels. Schillo, based in Thousand Oaks, said he has taken 14 calls, and 13 urged the supervisors not to give the deputies everything they want.

“Most of it was, ‘Hang in there,’ ” Schillo said. “I was kind of surprised about that, particularly in Thousand Oaks. I thought more people would be in favor of the sheriff’s deputies.”

Mikels, who represents Simi Valley, said the only call to her office was from the brother of a sheriff’s deputy who said officers are already overpaid.

“It seems to me that they’ve spent a heck of a lot of money on nothing,” she said. “The public is not stupid. They understand this is a labor union. It doesn’t have anything to do with public safety. It has to do with benefits and salary.”

Labor chief Glen Kitzmann defended the campaign as a way to get out the union’s belief that supervisors are not treating them fairly in negotiations. Kitzmann pointed to a union-commissioned poll showing strong support for the deputies’ demands as proof that a wider county audience is on their side.

“They can say we’re wasting money if they want,” he said. “What else are we going to do--sit back and work without a contract for a year or so?”

Sheriff’s deputies patrol Thousand Oaks, Moorpark, Camarillo, Fillmore, Ojai and the county’s unincorporated areas. They earn between $41,939 and $58,552 annually, depending on experience, and are entitled to 50% of their pay as a pension after 25 years.

Contract talks stalled in May over the deputies’ demand for a new wage package. County negotiators offered a 4% pay hike, but deputies want a guarantee that salaries will rise whenever pay for law enforcement in surrounding cities and counties goes up.