{"id":22955,"date":"2025-03-28T17:22:31","date_gmt":"2025-03-28T23:22:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-county-sheriffs-office-collective-bargaining-proposal-passes-unanimously\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:21:01","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:21:01","slug":"montezuma-county-sheriffs-office-collective-bargaining-proposal-passes-unanimously","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-county-sheriffs-office-collective-bargaining-proposal-passes-unanimously\/","title":{"rendered":"Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office collective bargaining proposal passes unanimously"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Montezuma
Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office is applying for Jail-Based Behavioral Health Services funding from the Colorado Department of Human Services. The funding could help pay for medication or clinical staff at the Montezuma County Detention Center to better serve individuals with mental health issues.<\/span>Sean Dolan\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The votes are in, and all 44 eligible employees at the Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office that voted on a collective bargaining proposal for the office voted in favor of it.<\/p>\n

It was a rare unanimous vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsually there\u2019s one or two no\u2019s,\u201d said Sean McCauley, a labor and employment lawyer who\u2019s representing the Sheriff\u2019s Office in this case.<\/p>\n

The election was conducted via mail-in ballots, and they did their \u201cdue diligence\u201d to ensure the addresses of all 59 eligible voters were correct, he said.<\/p>\n

Of those eligible, 45 returned a ballot. One person failed to sign the outside of the envelope, so only 44 votes were counted.<\/p>\n

Sheriff\u2019s Office employees at sergeant status or below were considered eligible to vote because of language in most every labor law that creates a cutoff for people who are in advisory roles, as McCauley explained in January when the office first provided a collective bargaining notice.<\/p>\n

Now that the proposal passed, Mesa Verde FOP Lodge 74<\/a> \u2013 the Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office bargaining unit \u2013 will move forward with creating a collective bargaining plan for the office.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, McCauley said he met with deputies from the office \u201cto go over what they\u2019d like to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201cover-arching challenge\u201d in the department concerns staffing and personnel, said McCauley.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have a tough time attracting and retaining employees,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The office \u201cisn\u2019t looking to become millionaires,\u201d said McCauley. \u201cAnything that can help them staff the place is what they want to propose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because without a properly staffed department, he said, it\u2019s hard to get time off and the job inherently becomes \u201cmore dangerous\u201d when officers are forced to go on calls alone.<\/p>\n

Come June or July, they\u2019re anticipating having a meeting with the Montezuma County Board of County Commissioners to review and establish the proposed agreement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Anything that can help them staff the place is what they want to propose,\u2019 attorney says <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21694,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,60,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-22955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22955"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77918,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22955\/revisions\/77918"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22955"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=22955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}