Lagging salaries for Salt Lake County deputies are hurting recruitment and might jeopardize visions of a successful Unified Police District, Sheriff Aaron Kennard believes.

The county's 350 deputies are still working off a 1994 pay scale, Kennard said, and are paid about 11 to 13 percent lower than the officer average for 11 other city agencies around the valley. That lower pay is making it hard to recruit talented deputies and even more difficult to retain them, he said.

"It's a fairness issue. My deputies are doing everything that any other law enforcement officer is doing in the valley," he said. "The last thing I need to do is have them wishing they are working somewhere else."

Mayor Peter Corroon, however, denied an 11 percent deputy pay increase requested by Kennard for the 2006 budget this week, saying he does not want to make any major pay changes before the Unified Police District is created.

Mayors from the cities possibly included in the police district are concerned that a pay increase by the county could mean digging deeper into budgets to pay for the new district, Corroon said.

"The mayors want to be in control of this organization, and the feeling is that if the county goes about setting salaries for the police district, that wouldn't be a good thing," Corroon said.

The new group would be an umbrella organization for law enforcement throughout the county, although cities would retain some local control of their own precincts. The five cities that contract with the county for policing services — Bluffdale, Herriman, Holladay, Riverton and Cottonwood Heights — would comprise the new district.

But Kennard said those plans may not stand a chance if the county doesn't bump up pay for its deputies. Although Corroon hopes the district can start up as early as July 1, Kennard said starting out the district based on the county's low salaries will only hinder the new organization.

"They surely don't want to start out this new agency on the dime with poor morale, with people saying this isn't the best agency," Kennard said. "The last thing they want to do is set up an organization and have people bailing out because they're being paid a dollar or two less."

Kennard plans to lobby council members to overturn Corroon's denial of the $2.5 million request during upcoming budget workshops. County deputies have not seen a raise in the pay scale for 12 years, Kennard said.

In particular, entry level and maximum compensation levels are "woefully behind" for the county, he said.

According to the comparison study done by a consultant group, entry-level salaries for county deputies are about 6 percent behind the average, and maximum wages are at least 15 percent lower.