BASTROP COUNTY -- Sheriff's deputies and staff in Bastrop County say their ability to provide for their families is being stripped away after raises the county promised are being taken off the table.
In the commissioners court's proposed budget, built in tenure raises for 161 sheriff's employees are eliminated.
Currently, the raises are implemented every few years and range from just more than $1,000 to several thousand dollars.
For Deputy James Johnson, joining the Bastrop County Sheriff's Department earlier this year meant job security and the promise of a better future.
"It's like the American dream, you start somewhere, you start at the bottom, you're settle into the program, you work, you give them all you got, in return for the gain," said Johnson.
He's questioning his future with the department now. Not only would the proposed budget eliminate the raises, but would also grant the department just four of the 27 new positions it requested.
County Sheriff Terry Pickering is concerned he'll start losing deputies if his pay scale becomes stagnant. Right now starting deputy in Bastrop makes just under $41,000, compared to more than $52,000 in Travis County.
"As people get frustrated not making the money that they would like to make, they move on to other places, then we have vacancies that we have to deal with," Pickering said.
More than 60 of his deputies and staff members filled the Bastrop County courthouse chambers to try and persuade the commissioner's court to reconsider. However Judge Paul Pape wasn't budging.
"I would regret the fact that those promises might have been made and can't be kept, but on the other hand, I made no apologies about my proposal to eliminate that tenure pay and bring everybody back into line," Pape said.
Other county employees do not receive tenure pay, and Judge Pape believes taking it away from the 161 sheriff's employees who do evens things out. For Johnson, the worry now is providing for his family.
"I have a 3-year-old little boy and here in about two weeks I have my second boy that'll be here right in the first week of September, and it's scary," he said.
To make up for the lost tenure raises the commissioners court is proposing a one-time merit based raise.
But employees say it's minimal, and eliminated the guarantee.
