ICYMI: Local Leader Offers Help Finding More Minority Paulding Deputies

DALLAS, GA — A Paulding County political leader has pledged to help the county's sheriff find more minority applicants.

The Marietta Daily Journal reports that Sheriff Gary Gulledge met with a group of community members, including county election board member Michael Scott, Monday evening.

Scott said he would work with advocacy groups to help find qualified applicants to swell the ranks of the sheriff's department.

The sheriff’s office employs eight black and three Hispanic deputies out of a total of 210. The county has a minority population of about 22 percent.

The meeting, at the sheriff's office, comes after a community meeting with law enforcement at Oasis Church in Dallas last week and a rumored Black Lives Matter rally in the county which turned out to be much ado about almost nothing.

Gulledge told the group his office does not have a recruitment policy specifically targeting minorities. He said his main challenge is finding and keeping qualified employees of any race, especially when many surrounding sheriff's offices and police departments pay more.

Paulding pays about $29,000 per year for a jailer with no experience, and $35,000 for a deputy with experience, Sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Ashley Henson told the group.

“We hire, train and watch them go somewhere else because of the pay,” he said, according to the MDJ. “I’ve been working on trying to get the pay better. We spend two to three years training them to watch them go elsewhere.”

To read the MDJ's full report, click here.