CHARLES TOWN – Thirty current and former Jefferson County Sheriff’s deputies have sued the county commission over alleged pay issues.
The complaint was filed November 14 in Jefferson Circuit Court. The plaintiffs are Chief Deputy Victor Lupis, Glen Kilmer, Scott Demory, Kevin Boyce, Joseph Forman, Steven Holz, Ronald Fletcher, Kelsey Stipanovic, Christian Hockman, Albert Hockman, Darrell Cox, Matthew Armel, William Wilhelm, Douglas Fletcher, Brandon Conway, Joshua Weaver, Robert Sell, Ben Williams, Vincent Tiong, Charles Ellis, Ty Carroll, Ryan Jenkins, Robin Mahony, Joseph Grantham, Joseph Moffett, Matthew Harper, Allan Thomas, Tavis Stely and Kraig Chandler.
According to the complaint, the pay issues keep the department from retaining experience deputies and attracting new recruits. And that, the complaint says, has led to staffing issues that threaten public safety.
Toriseva
“The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Deputies have a good relationship with their county commission and are hopeful that all sides can work to reach an amicable resolution,” attorney Teresa Toriseva told The West Virginia Record. “Jefferson County, like many other West Virginia counties, is experiencing manpower shortages in the Sheriff’s office. When employees are not paid correctly, they seek employment elsewhere.
“The lawsuit seeks to fix the deputies’ pay in order to make it consistent with West Virginia law and to improve recruiting and retention in the Sheriff’s office.”
The deputies say the county has violated the West Virginia Wage Payment and Collection Act in a variety of ways. Those include failure to accurately provide vacation leave, failure to provide all sick leave, failure to provide longevity pay, failure to pay overtime and failure to pay accrued leave.
They also allege violation of the Takings Clause in the state Constitution, saying money as a wage owed to a person is private property and that “private property shall not be taken or damaged for public use.”
“The defendant reduces the plaintiffs’ unutilized leave in excess of the sheriff deputies’ maximum number of leave hours permitted to be carried forward from one calendar year to the next,” the complaint states. “When the defendant reduces the plaintiffs’ unutilized accumulated leave hours from one calendar year to the next, it does so without paying the plaintiffs for those unutilized leave hours. The defendant has taken their private property in violation of the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights.”
The deputies also allege violations of the state Constitution’s Due Process Clause, again citing the unutilized accumulated leave hours from one calendar year to the next.
In addition, the complaint says the county failed to accurately pay Lupis overtime.
Snce he was promoted to Chief Deputy by Sheriff Thomas Hansen on January 17, 2021, Lupis says he has not been paid overtime. He says emergency pay of $773.22 for work on February 18, 2021, was taken away from him.
And, it says Wilhelm, a corporal, wasn’t timely promoted, saying that is another violation of the Wage Payment and Collection Act. He seeks back pay and credit for time in grade concerning an unreasonable delay in his promotion after another corporal retired in April 2022.
Wilhelm applied for the opening, and he was told he could use previous testing scores for the test. The Jefferson County Deputy Sheriff Civil Service Commission tested for the job in August 2022. The next day, Wilhelm was told he would have to take the test after all. He tested in October 2022 and achieved the highest test scores. But a dispute between civil service commission and the Sheriff delayed his promotion until February 2023.
The plaintiffs seek to recover lost wages for incorrect pay practices and policies that fail to properly comply with the Deputy Civil Service Rules, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department’s Administrative Rules, Regulations, Operational Policies, and Procedures, general orders or West Virginia Law.
They seek compensatory damages, interest, attorney fees, court costs and other relief.
They are being represented by Toriseva and Joshua Miller of Toriseva Law in Wheeling. The case has been assigned to Circuit Judge David Hammer.
Jefferson Circuit Court case number 23-C-221
