BERKELEY SPRINGS, W.Va. — The sheriff in Morgan County is preparing to start a second term.
U.S. District Judge Gina Groh administered the oath of office to Morgan County Sheriff K.C. Bohrer during a ceremony this week.
Staffing is one of the issues he said he continues to try to address.
Recently, a nine-year deputy with the Morgan County Sheriff’s Department left for better pay at another agency.
The departure was the latest in a trend.
“I think in the past four years I’ve probably been fully staffed maybe four months,” Sheriff Bohrer told the Panhandle News Network.
He said he understands the motivation.
Bohrer, himself, took a pay cut to return home to Morgan County to serve as sheriff.
He said the Eastern Panhandle is a great place to live, but its location makes it convenient for good law enforcement officers to drive elsewhere for better compensation, benefits and other incentives.
“In the climate we have in the country, all agencies are having difficulty recruiting officers. So we need to do better at that and do what we can to keep officers, but we need to to improve a lot of things to be able to attract officers,” Sheriff Bohrer said.
Bohrer was first elected sheriff in 2016 and was re-elected this year after running unopposed in the Nov. 3 general election.
He previously served as a deputy sheriff in Berkeley County for 28 years and retired with the rank of captain before going on to work as an investigator and FBI Task Force officer in Virginia for ten years.
Sheriff Bohrer claims to be the longest-serving law enforcement officer in West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle with 42 years of continuous service.