Sedgwick County Commissioners have voted unanimously to approve pay adjustments for the Sheriff’s Office and the District Attorney’s Office, to help with staffing and retention.

For the DA’s Office, a 7.6% pay scale adjustment will raise salaries for all attorneys within the office. To assist in recruitment, this proposal will raise the minimum starting salary for an entry level Staff Attorney I from the current amount of $74,380 to $80,033.   The adjustment has been included in the 2024 and 2025 budgets.   District Attorney Marc Bennett said County Commissioners have helped with salary adjustments that were made two years ago, but his office continues to struggle to get attorneys and he has lost attorneys to surrounding counties that have raised their salaries.   He said his office is at 17 percent vacancy at this time and at full staffing he would have 56 attorneys.   There are 81 homicide cases pending and those are handled by 20 to 25 attorneys, with the others handling appeals, juvenile offender cases, traffic offenses and other areas.   He said the office has been working at a manageable pace with innovative staffing practices.

The Sheriff’s Office will have a 2% adjustment in the third quarter of 2024, and that was discussed earlier this year and it was included as part of 2025 budget conversations. The 2025 budget anticipates this increase in September 2024, as well as a 2% scale adjustment on January 1, 2025.  Costs for this pay adjustment for the remainder of 2024 will be
$251,338 with annual costs of $933,540.    Sheriff Jeff Easter said past actions by the County Commission have helped with recruitment and retention and a plan was put together to compete with salary increases enacted by the Wichita Police Department going into 2025 and 2026.   Easter said the Sheriff’s Office has been hiring more people than it has been losing this year, and a health and wellness unit has increased retention.   He said staff has felt they are cared for and respected, and that’s one of the reasons why they stay, plus they are better equipped and better trained.