10/08/2026
Bargaining Update October 8, 2026
Dear members of Lake County Correctional Association,
We’re writing to provide you with an update on CBA negotiations. Our negotiations began more than a year ago, our CBA expired on 12/31/2025, and up until today, the County has insisted on concessions for us and brought no money to the table. Today, we met with County representatives:
Joe Travis, County HR
Anthony Overholt, Attorney
Michael Zenk, Consultant
No elected county officials were at the table, and the representatives implied that they had not told those elected representatives about the meeting, or met with them to discuss our last proposal, which included raises and a step pay plan.
In contrast, the Sheriff’s Police recently met directly with elected officials, prior to the 12/31/2026 expiration of their contract, and in a handful of meetings, approved a one-year contract with 4% raises and three additional holidays.
The County put some money on the table today, but not without conditioning it on a major concession: the County offered a 4% raise for next year and no retroactive raises, but only if the officers agree to a substantial reduction in their comp time banks of over 50%. Your Union representatives found this proposal unacceptable and unfair.
In order to try to resolve this quickly, the Union has proposed a 4% increase for 2026 (retroactive to January) and an additional 4% increase for 2027. In addition, we’ve asked for the three new holidays which were also given to the Police.
Our proposal also includes agreeing to restrict comp time use to 2 days per month (current practice, even though it is not in the CBA) and adding PREA Investigator to the list of specialty pay positions, but otherwise makes no other changes to the CBA through 2027.
We strongly believe this proposal is fair, in line with what the Police recently received, and based on documents provided by the County, is in the budget.
We’ve asked that the County representatives present our last offer to the Commissioners. We are asking for your support in getting this offer approved. Please contact the Commissioners and ask them to tell the representatives to accept our proposal. If they hear from you and the citizens of Lake County that this is important, we hope they will agree.
Please email the Lake County Commissioners and ask them to vote yes to our October 8 proposal:
Michael Repay – [email protected]
Kyle Allen, Sr. – [email protected]
Jerry Tippy - [email protected]
Thank you for your support.
