Overview
• When Morgan took office in August 2025, the Sheriff’s Office had a high number of vacant positions, in part because deputies would leave after a few years for better-paying jobs.
• Morgan had his staff develop a new pay schedule designed to boost early-career pay and keep deputies from leaving.
• Capt. Adam Bean, who was shot to death in March, was a key person in developing the new pay schedule.
When Cumberland County Sheriff Johnathan Morgan retires on December 1, he’ll leave office after a short tenure—fewer than 16 months. But he anticipates he will leave the Sheriff’s Office better able to build up its ranks than it was when he was appointed in August 2025 to replace Sheriff Ennis Wright.
Morgan’s legacy: He and his staff developed a new salary and pay plan for the deputies. Called the Career Development Step Plan, it’s designed to stem years of staffing shortages and high turnover among the lower ranks.
The new pay plan “front loads” pay increases earlier into the deputies’ careers than the old play plan did, Morgan said, to encourage them to stay with the department instead of seeking jobs elsewhere after a few years.
The Cumberland County Board of Commissioners approved the new pay plan in June.
“Our biggest thing is: We want to make an impact as to getting good quality people into the Sheriff’s Office, and making sure that we hold on to quality folks,” Morgan told CityView. “Keep them here at the agency as long as we can. And hopefully we can foster a good work environment for folks, and they enjoy working here, and they enjoy serving the citizens of Cumberland County.”
The new plan isn’t a cure-all, but it will help, the sheriff said.
“It’s just a small part of fixing things within recruitment and retention,” he said. Other challenges remain, he said, such as the declining popularity among the general public for law enforcement careers.
Morgan will wrap up 30 years in law enforcement when he retires, most of those with the Sheriff’s Office. He hoped to serve longer, but in March he came in second to former Spring Lake Police Chief Troy McDuffie in a four-way Democratic primary for sheriff. McDuffie faces former Deputy LaRue Windham, a Republican, in the November election.
The Sheriff’s Office staffing shortage has been so severe that Wright, in May 2024, announced he would pull the department’s school resource officers from around 60 schools in Fayetteville, Hope Mills, and Spring Lake. The school deputies were moved to other law enforcement duties.
In January 2025, Wright persuaded county commissioners to allocate $350,000 for recruiting and retention incentives. At the time, the Sheriff’s Office had 173 vacancies—77 out of 315 deputy positions, and 96 out of 162 officers at the Detention Center—a 59% vacancy rate at the jail.
Three months since the new pay and raises plan took effect, the Sheriff’s Office had 159 vacancies—87 deputies and 72 detention officers, the agency said.
Starting annual pay for a deputy sheriff is $54,735, and it maxes out at $85,824 with no promotions to a higher rank. Detention officers start at $49,410 and top out at $77,256 without promotions.
Other Agencies Poached Deputies
The old pay plan at the Sheriff’s Office dated to 1980, Morgan said. Deputies got pay raises after their first year, and then every other year from then on through their 23rd year.
The new plan provides more longevity pay sooner. Employees can reach the top pay in their rank in 13 years instead of 23 years, he said.
“We were getting a lot of people applying, and they were coming here,” Morgan said. “It’s just they would stay here for about a year-and-a-half, two years, three years, then go on to another agency, making more money. When you’re putting all that money and time into training somebody, you kind of want to hold on to them.”
Another defect: The old formula worked against the deputies.
“The way we’ve done the math, even if you made it to year 23, you left about twenty-some-thousand dollars on the table because there was no way you could reach the max pay,” he said. “Giving somebody a 5% raise every one of those years, you still don’t reach max pay.”
Morgan jumped on the pay problem when he took office.
“When I first went into my first command staff meeting, I said, ‘Guys, this is about us, about us, not about me. It’s about us. And it’s our job to make sure we take care of the folks that are working here,” he said.
The staff researched how other law enforcement handled pay to see which ideas looked best, and developed the new pay plan.
‘Bean Counter Plan’
Capt. Adam Bean, who was the assistant chief of detectives, was a key person in designing the new pay scale, Morgan said.
“This wasn’t just a one-man operation,” Morgan said. “We had several folks looking at things, but Adam had a large play in it,” he said. He described Bean as “very intelligent, very intelligent.”
“And knew his way around numbers. That’s for sure. So he was a good asset to have when it come to working on this thing,” Morgan said.
Morgan teased Bean about the work he put into the project, telling him, “‘Man, this a ‘Bean Counter Plan,’” and “‘This would be the Adam Bean Pay Plan.’”
Morgan said he misses Bean. The captain was shot to death on March 27 during an off-duty confrontation with a N.C. State Highway Patrol sergeant in Gray’s Creek. Nekime Matu Oxendine is charged with first-degree murder.
The Sheriff’s Office posthumously recognized Bean’s work with a Merit Award on September 9 during the Greater Fayetteville Chamber’s 8th Annual Valor Public Safety Awards.
“Captain Bean played a pivotal role in advancing a modernized Career Development Step Plan, addressing a pay structure that had not been comprehensively updated since its inception in 1980,” the Sheriff’s Office said on Facebook. “His efforts helped strengthen the agency’s ability to recruit, retain, and support highly qualified personnel while contributing directly to the continued effectiveness of public safety operations throughout Cumberland County.”
End of a Long Career
Morgan’s retirement brings a 30-year law enforcement career to an end. He also spent 20 years as a volunteer firefighter.
His most rewarding position, he said, was as a school resource officer from the early 2000s until 2014. “I loved working in the schools,” he said.
In the last year, Morgan said, a former student from his time at South View High School sought him out.
“And she said, ‘Well, I’d moved away for a while, and while I was there, I kind of got mixed up with some folks, and I could have made some really bad decisions,’” he said. “But she said, ‘Your voice and my grandmother’s voice was in my head, telling me, ‘Hey you’re getting ready to make some bad decisions.’”
“That meant a lot to me,” he said.
In August, another former student Morgan knew from South View visited the Sheriff’s Office to apply to become a deputy, he said.
While that man was starting a new career, Morgan was still working out what he will do at the end of his career.
“I did enjoy being a firefighter,” and he might do that again, he said. He wants to spend time with his father, who is getting older, and he enjoys vegetable gardening.
“I’m not one to sit still. I don’t like just to sit around the house. I got to have something to do,” Morgan said.
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
