Mineral County Sheriff’s Office employees are seeking to form a union nearly a decade after the last one disbanded. 

Deputy sheriffs and detention officers would unionize through the Montana Federation of Public Employees, the state’s largest labor union, according to a petition posted in the Mineral County courthouse, dated Sept. 25. 

Personnel in the Sheriff’s Office, including four deputies and six detention officers, have asked the Montana Board of Personnel Appeals to certify the new collective bargaining unit. Once certified, union members will elect leadership, identify priorities, and begin bargaining a contract with management officials, according to a Montana Federation of Public Employees news release.   

County Sheriff Ryan Funke told the Daily Inter Lake that deputies and detention officers are likely seeking higher wages and benefits from the county. 

However, he’s doubtful their requests will come to fruition. 

Funke was able to secure an extra 76 cents per hour for his deputies, detention officers and dispatchers in the finalized 2025-26 county budget. A deputy sheriff’s base salary is roughly $26 an hour, and the base salary for detention officers is $17.69 an hour, plus an additional $1 per hour for overnight shifts.  

However, he speculated there could be a tighter budget next year. 

“I can’t force the commissioners to give a pay increase when they don’t have the money,” Funke said.  

For comparison, the base salary for deputies in nearby Missoula County was about $36 per hour, according to the union’s 2023-25 bargaining agreement. 

County Commissioner Ryan Zylawy said the county lacks the tax base to provide substantial wage increases and benefits to public employees. Every department has asked for higher wages from the county, he said.  

Less than 10% of land in Mineral County is privately owned, he noted, which contributes to revenue constraints. 

“We have a shoestring budget, and we always have,” Zylawy said. 

County Clerk and Recorder Kelann McLees estimated the last union in the Sheriff’s Office formed sometime in 1999, based on union dues deducted from payrolls. The last bargaining contract submitted by the union was signed in December 2017, and officials said the union dissolved in 2018.  

Unionized Sheriff’s Office employees went on a month-long strike in June 2016 over low wages and short-term contracts, according to the Mineral Independent. Sheriff deputies, dispatch and detention officers were all involved in the strike.  

Zylawy recalled temporarily recruiting retired dispatchers to maintain emergency operations during the strike. The sheriff and undersheriff responded to emergency calls, and Missoula County lent a few of its own personnel, he said. 

Reporter Hannah Shields can be reached at 758-4439 or [email protected].