Union County sheriff’s office promotes reserve deputy to patrol role

Union County’s sheriff’s office filled a patrol opening by moving Skylar Williams from the jail side of the agency into the field, a shift that showed how much the county relies on internal hiring to keep deputies on the road.

Williams had worked the past year as a reserve corrections deputy at the Union County Correctional Facility. The next step was training with the Union County Sheriff’s Office, followed by the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training Academy in Salem, the formal path that leads into Oregon law enforcement. In a county where one deputy can make a difference in how quickly calls are covered from La Grande to the Grande Ronde Valley, the move mattered well beyond one job title.

The sheriff’s office says it has 16 deputy positions in all, a total that includes sergeants, detectives and animal enforcement. Its patrol deputies handle emergencies, traffic control, neighborhood patrols, citations, warrant service and arrests. That makes each vacant seat a staffing issue, not just a personnel change, especially in a rural county where one deputy may cover a wide area and a wide range of calls.

The county’s posting for a patrol deputy lists the job as full time, with pay from $4,298 to $5,485 a month, including lateral pay, plus medical, dental, vision and retirement benefits. A spring 2025 posting also required a background check, physical exam, physical agility test, drug screening and psychological exam, showing the level of screening that comes before a patrol assignment in Union County.

The reserve-to-patrol route is not new to the sheriff’s office culture. Sheriff Cody Bowen has said his own career began after two years as a reserve or volunteer before he became a full-time patrol deputy in 2011. Williams’ promotion fits that same pattern, building a patrol roster from people who already know the jail, the county and the expectations of the job.

The county’s law-enforcement history reaches back to October 14, 1864, when Union County was officially established and Isaiah Geer became its first sheriff. That long local lineage sits beside a modern staffing problem that is common across smaller Oregon agencies: keep enough trained people in the pipeline, or patrol coverage thins fast.

Union County is still recruiting reserve corrections deputies as part-time, as-needed workers at the correctional facility, while the sheriff’s office also has to balance budget pressures. A 2025 county budget committee document said the proposed budget would maintain staffing levels and services, add a school resource deputy and lose a district attorney investigator position because of grant loss. Williams’ move showed the office trying to preserve patrol strength through training, retention and promotion from within.