Sheriff's Office instituting changes but civilian oversight a sticking point

The King County sheriff has made progress on some recommendations put forth last year by an expert panel that investigated internal discipline of deputies, but a key reform -- creating a civilian oversight agency -- remains snagged on negotiations with the deputies labor union, Sheriff Sue Rahr says.

Those negotiations are under way, a spokeswoman for County Executive Ron Sims said Wednesday. Although the deputies work for the sheriff, who is elected independently, their labor contracts are bargained with the executive.

"I am confident that our labor union and the county will be able to find the balance and common ground necessary to allow us to implement the Blue Ribbon Panel reforms," Rahr wrote the County Council on April 1.

The panel was appointed in 2006 by Sims, the council and county Prosecutor Norm Maleng in response to "Conduct Unbecoming," a Seattle P-I series on apparent misbehavior by deputies and lax internal discipline. Many of the panel's recommendations were adopted by the council in passing legislation in October to create an Office of Law Enforcement Oversight. The office would have the authority to field complaints about Rahr and her deputies, to review Rahr's response to those and other complaints and to make suggestions to her about how to resolve them.

But that alters the disciplinary procedures spelled out in the deputies' current labor contract, which doesn't expire until the end of this year -- and changes to those procedures are subject to collective bargaining, the county has acknowledged.

The county's 2007 budget includes $404,000 for an oversight office comprising a director and three staff members. The budget also includes money to finance some other panel recommendations, such as increasing the number of sergeants in the Sheriff's Office to tighten supervision. Rahr said promoting seven deputies to sergeant and filling the resulting deputy vacancies with new recruits should take place in August.

Other reforms complete or under way, Rahr said, include posting citizen complaint forms on the Sheriff's Office Web site (metrokc.gov/sheriff/contact), stressing the importance of accountability within the department, upgrading training, forming precinct-level citizen advisory committees and creating an internal Inspectional Services Unit to evaluate procedures and performance. The Sheriff's Office also has developed new performance standards and evaluations, but they, too, are subject to labor negotiations.

The Sheriff's Office polices the unincorporated areas of King County and provides law enforcement by contract to 12 suburban cities, the Metro transit system and some other agencies. Its budget is close to $125 million a year, and it employs more than 1,000.