KINGWOOD, W.Va. — The Preston County Sheriff’s Department is working to address staffing shortages as deputies leave for higher-paying jobs with other agencies in the region.
Sheriff Scott Spiker said Kingwood is the only municipality with a police force, and they typically patrol until around midnight. Municipalities like Reedsville and Terre Alta had one officer each until they recently resigned. The Preston County Sheriff’s Department is down two deputies from their full staffing level of 13, leaving coverage thin for some parts of the day.
“In Preston County we cover 24-hour shifts, and we’re trying to adjust the scheduling to accommodate that,” Spiker said. “At times on the midnight shift from midnight to 8 a.m. we’ll only have one deputy out for the county.”
Spiker recently lost one deputy to the West Virginia State Police and another to a surrounding agency due to better pay and benefits. The starting salary in Preston County is about $48,000 per year, making it difficult to compete.
“Better benefits and better pay, and you can’t blame them for wanting to better themselves and their families,” Spiker said.
The shortage could be addressed within the next quarter if all goes well with the next scheduled test for hopeful deputies.
“We have a civil service test coming up October 25, so hopefully we’ll get some good applicants and be able to hire two,” Spiker said. “But the hiring process will take a couple of months probably once we get a list back from the Civil Service Commission.”
The staffing challenges will likely affect general operations as well as special duty assignments like school building patrols. Spiker said there could be a situation that would require the deputy assigned to schools to be reallocated for a period of time.
“We have one that works full-time at the school, and there are times we’ll probably have to pull him from the school detail to work the road,” Spiker said.
Spiker said the Preston County Commission has worked hard to raise salaries with the resources they have and hopes more work can be done in the future. Like many counties across the state dealing with tight budgets, the solutions must be creative and are many times difficult.
“We need to work with the county to try to get the salaries up,” Spiker said. “They’ve brought the salaries up a good bit compared to what they were, and we just need to work together to get them up a little more.”