Editor’s note: The following was sent to the Times by Unit 30 – Merced County Sheriff Sergeants & District Attorney Investigators.
This is in response to Supervisor Darron McDaniel’s recent op-ed, “Pay raises for Merced County deputies were necessary for public safety.”
After reading his piece, we came to the conclusion that you would have to be a CIA codebreaker to figure out which side of the fence he’s actually on. While Mr. McDaniel appears to praise the idea of pay raises, the reality is that all five Merced County Supervisors continue to play Russian roulette with the safety and security of our residents.
The fact is, Merced County has essentially the same number of patrol deputies covering the county today as we did in the 1960s and ’70s. In that time, our population has exploded, our crime challenges have grown, and yet staffing has remained stagnant. Rather than improving the situation, the Board of Supervisors has been regressive and detrimental.
Our post-retirement benefits have been reduced. Our post-retirement medical coverage has been reduced. Our insurance costs have gone up. Our pay remains uncompetitive, not only within our own county but compared to neighboring counties. And our benefits? They’re far worse than those of comparable agencies. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that when wages and benefits are uncompetitive, you can’t retain employees. That creates an environment where we’re just trying to keep the lights on.
Yes, we occasionally retain someone simply because the work environment here is excellent — but that is in spite of the Board, not because of it. Meanwhile, the Supervisors pat themselves on the back and claim to be “champions of public safety” — usually every two years, right around election time.
Mr. McDaniel and his colleagues can manipulate numbers all they want, but here’s what he doesn’t say: with every so-called “raise,” there’s often a significant increase in employee contributions to benefits. That cancels out the raise entirely.
We in Unit 30 are done engaging in their political gamesmanship. It’s nauseating and has a striking resemblance to the worst of Washington, D.C. politics — where career politicians look out for their own interests at the expense of the people they serve. Term limits, anyone?
The role of a local elected official was never meant to be a career steppingstone. It was meant for people who genuinely want to help their community — not for pay, not for recognition, and certainly not as a platform for the next political move at the state or federal level.
We do not support Mr. McDaniel or Mr. Silveira in their upcoming elections, and the remaining three Supervisors should not feel confident about 2028 either.
To the residents of Merced County: we love you, we are grateful for your support, and we will continue to give you the best service possible — even if the Board of Supervisors refuses to give us the tools to do it.