Sheriff Keith Byrd files lawsuit against Decatur Co.

DECATURVILLE, Tenn. — A West Tennessee sheriff is suing the county he is elected to serve.

Earlier this week, Decatur County Sheriff Keith Byrd filed a lawsuit against the county.

“It’s high time that somebody did something, and I wouldn’t be much of a leader if I didn’t take up for my own people,” Byrd said, days after he filed a lawsuit against Mayor Mike Creasy.

He says his employees have not gotten a raise since 2008, not even for the cost of living.

“I met with the county attorney; I met with the county mayor, some of my command staff. We thought we had a budget worked out that everybody could live with,” Byrd said.

But the county commission denied his requested budget multiple times.

“By the time we got to version seven or eight, my budget had been whittled down to basically what we had last year,” he said.

Part of the lawsuit says the budget “included an increase of a total of $1,032 for patrol deputies’ salaries, enough to give one deputy a 47-cent-an-hour raise or all of the deputies a 4-cent-an-hour raise.”

“It should be obvious to everybody that these people are underpaid, and they’ve been underpaid for years,” Byrd said. “Unless I did something drastic, it would never change. 10 years from now they’d still be making $12.74 an hour.”

In 2018, WBBJ 7 Eyewitness News reported Byrd’s struggle to retain employees because of pay. At the time, Byrd said, “We are the lowest paid sheriff’s office in the judicial district, and lower than any of our neighbors.”

Byrd also cited the inability to buy and maintain equipment, as WBBJ 7 Eyewitness News also reported in 2018. The lawsuit states, “No new patrol vehicles have been purchased in almost four years. The average age of the fleet of vehicles is 10 years old.”

“I have two cars now that are trashed. We’re going to sell them and get what we can out of them. They’re too old to be repaired. We’ve got cars on the road right now that are subject to breaking down any time,” Byrd said.

Now, the sheriff has become desperate. He says if he loses, he doesn’t know what he’ll do.

“It may get to the point I have to lay people off and do the best I can with what I’ve got,” he said.

Mayor Creasy said he and the sheriff had been through negotiations, but when it came down to it, the county commission didn’t approve what they had agreed to.

This is the third lawsuit filed by West Tennessee sheriffs in recent months, followed by Hardeman and Madison County.