McKenzie County Farmer - Archive

Steve Hallstrom
Special to The Farmer

The McKenzie County Commission has unanimously passed a motion to allow the McKenzie County Sheriff’s Office to pursue the addition of a new staff member.

The Public Relations Specialist position, approved during the commission’s September 2 meeting, would help the sheriff’s office bring timely and accurate information to the county while allowing other members of the department to better fulfill the job duties they are responsible for.
The county commission agreed to move forward, but a final job description and compensation summary has not yet been determined. 
The discussion has sparked debate about rising government costs in a county that has seen significant demographic and economic changes over the past decade.

The county has seen well-documented rapid growth.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county’s population surged from 6,412 in 2010 to 14,782 in 2024, an increase of 130%. The county grew at an average annual rate of 7% between 2010 and 2022, with its largest single-year jump of 18.3% occurring between 2013 and 2014. Despite a 6.3% decline between 2020 and 2021, the population rebounded, reaching an estimated 14,978 in 2025, with a growth rate of 2.48% in the past year alone. This rapid expansion, fueled by the oil boom, has brought increased demands on public services like the sheriff’s office.

Sheriff Johansen says the increased activity has not only strained his department but led to frustration from residents seeking information during developing situations and public emergencies. 

“It kind of came up last fall, we had a string of major thefts, and a lot of the public was upset that we weren’t getting information out fast enough,” Johansen said. “I said, well, currently the people that do our Facebook posts and such, they’re detectives. And at the time those detectives were busy with other things, trying to find out who’s doing this and executing search warrants. And then there was nobody to put out an update. So if we have someone that’s dedicated to do that, we’ll be able to get that information out a lot faster with things that are going on, whether it be large theft cases, large grassland fires, well site explosions or any major incident that occurs.”

The proposed position would involve a full-time salary and county benefits package. Once the sheriff’s office writes up the job description and compensation package, the county commission will need to approve the posting before it goes public. 
Johansen emphasized that the role would lead to improved community relations.

“It would improve community engagement and trust…and you know, improve media relations during those critical events like explosions or fires, crashes where you’ve got to shut the road down for hours at a time or set up a detour, and it would also support employee wellness and mental health.”

Officials also believe the new position would aid in retention and recruitment.
Speaking at the September 2 commission meeting, Chief Deputy Mike Ficken told commissioners, “Obviously, you guys know that’s been an issue with our agency for several years. Ever since I started here in 2015, we get just close enough to be fully staffed and then all of a sudden we go back so we’re having to recruit more people.”

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