A challenger has emerged in the Montgomery County sheriff’s race, saying that a large number of demoralized deputies have left their jobs over the incumbent’s poor leadership.
Will Milam, 43, of Poolesville, who retired in February as second in command at the Prince George’s County Sheriff’s Office, said after serving one term, Montgomery County Sheriff Maxwell Uy is the reason the office has a shortfall of about 30 sheriff’s deputies.
“Right now, the sheriff’s office is broken. We are in the midst of a historic staffing crisis,” Milam said. “When you talk to the rank and file, when you talk to the people that have left to go to other departments, or take an early retirement, they’ll tell you that the reason they left is because of the toxic work environment. They’ll tell you that morale is at an all-time low there.”
Uy said the majority of the departures are due to natural attrition and called Milam’s allegations offensive, baseless, and advanced by a small number of unhappy employees or former employees.
“I do not agree with his assertion that the office is broken,” he said.
Uy, elected in 2022 as the first Asian American sheriff in Montgomery County, and previously hired as a deputy sheriff in Montgomery in 1994, said more than three decades with the office makes him the best equipped for the job.
“I’ve committed my career and continue to commit my career to the residents of Montgomery County,” Uy said. “I’ll be the first one to admit, we are in extremely challenging times. It’s going to get better. … I’m very optimistic that we’ll be dealing with our staffing challenges in the not-so distant future.”
Uy, a 52-year-old Clarksburg resident, was optimistic because the number of applicants for sheriff deputies is increasing due to recruiting efforts.
However, he acknowledged that his office is about 30 sheriff’s deputies shy of the 155 it can hire. That’s about as many sheriff deputies who have left the office since 2023, Uy said, but that includes a majority who have retired, and others who have left for other departments or for unknown reasons.
Gino Renne, president of UFCW Local 1994 MCGEO, the union that represents sheriff’s deputies and civilian employees at the sheriff’s office, said his membership has overwhelmingly endorsed Milam.
“It’s beyond being a poor leader; he’s not a leader at all,” Renne said of Uy. “He’s running everybody out of the department.”
Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Jim Johnson said he’s worked with Uy for more than two decades. Uy was his primary instructor at the police academy.
Johnson said he has worked under three sheriffs in the office, and Uy has done more than his predecessors to recruit sheriff’s deputies, including securing grants to accomplish that goal.
He added that most police agencies are having staffing issues. He called the problem “endemic” and said attacks against Uy are politically motivated.
“This is political theater,” he said. “A toxic work environment? I don’t see that. That’s a mischaracterization of what’s going on in the sheriff’s office.”
He added about Uy, “With absolute certainty, he really cares about this office and everybody who works here. He cares about our safety. He cares about our well-being. ... He always has.”
The starting salary for a sheriff’s deputy is $65,969. In addition to sheriff’s deputies, Uy oversees about 50 supervisors. His office has a budget of more than $33 million. Uy’s salary is $200,546.
The office, which Uy calls the law enforcement arm of Montgomery courts, oversees holding cells at Circuit Court and District Court in Rockville, and a District Court in Silver Spring. Sheriff’s deputies are responsible for safely transporting inmates to and from court and protecting judges and courtroom patrons. The office is also tasked with responding to domestic-violence orders, serving evictions and responding to child support and red-flag court orders.
Uy and Milam are both Democrats and are slated to meet in the June primaries.
Milam wants to refocus department
Milam said he has a new vision for the county’s sheriff’s office, which includes ordering sheriff’s deputies to respond to 911 domestic violence calls, which Uy said can happen in some circumstances but is not currently a primary role of a sheriff’s deputy.
Domestic violence impacts millions of people a year, a “crisis that is hiding in plain sight,” Milam said.
“I want our deputies to be more active and more proactive [in] intervening in domestic violence,” he said.
Uy said Milam’s proposal seems unrealistic because of the staffing shortages.
Milam also wants to emphasize having deputies respond empathetically to mental health challenges, including 911 calls for mental health emergencies, which is not done in Prince George’s or Montgomery counties. He intends to incorporate a similar model from Prince George’s County, which takes responding deputies out of traditional uniforms and puts them in a more “subdued” polo shirt.
Those deputies would receive crisis intervention training, Milam said. In the model at Prince George’s, sheriff’s deputies worked with members of the medical community and the courts to best address people suffering from a mental crisis, he said.
That work included meetings with stakeholders who would provide input on best practices, Milam said.
“We stopped working in silos and worked together,” he said.
“People who are navigating mental health challenges need care, not the criminal justice system,” Milam said. “So our temperature has to be brought down in order to bring their temperature down.”
Milam said as part of the new vision, sheriff’s deputies would work with education personnel and establish partnerships to mentor the youth.
“Our deputy sheriffs will be focused on coaching and mentoring our youth,” he said. “If we can help them make good decisions now, it will bode well for the future.”
Uy highlights training, ‘caliber of deputies’
Uy is focused on reducing the staffing shortage, which he attributed to several factors, including some of the negative attention police all over the country received following the murder of George Floyd and other high-profile brutality cases. But he also cited other factors, including the expectation that employees should be able to work remotely, competitive salaries at neighboring police departments, and an aging workforce hitting retirement.
Uy said he has been managing the staffing shortage by moving some sheriff’s deputies from the domestic violence section to work in courts. He’s also been reassigning deputies from the midnight shift to court duties.
The shortage has also forced his office to offer overtime. Overtime shifts are filled on a voluntary basis, and, at times, three to five deputies could be working overtime on any given day, Uy said.
The office has an overtime budget of more than $324,000, of which more than $170,000 has been paid since Aug. 25.
Uy said other priorities include hiring civilian personnel, who could help alleviate some work for sheriff’s deputies who focus on domestic violence.
Civilians make up about 35 employees in the office, Uy said, and they are consistently chosen from a bigger applicant pool than sheriff’s deputies because there are fewer training obligations and state requirements for them.
The sheriff, a former academy instructor, also said he’s proud the office has been able to maintain two instructors at the police academy, because “training is so important.”
“It’s so critical that not only do we attract the best people, and do really good background [checks],” he said. “But we do the work on the front end, too. We invest in training.”
Uy added he’s run a relatively controversy-free office, which he attributes to the “caliber of deputies” his office has hired.
“We don’t have use-of-force issues. We don’t have significant disciplinary issues,” he said. “I’m committed to continuing to build our team and keep meeting the needs of our residents.”
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