AUBURN – A new candidate is ready to take a pay cut to become Androscoggin County’s No. 2 cop.

Sheriff Guy Desjardins named Michael Ward of Oxford, a former Androscoggin County deputy, as his pick to replace Eric Samson for the job of chief deputy.

Ward currently works as a patrol officer in the town of Oxford.

“He’s coming with his eyes open,” Desjardins said. “I told him, ‘This is a political appointment.’ He knows it.”

The job has been vacant since May 7, when Desjardins demoted Eric Samson under pressure from the three-member County Commission.

For 16 months, Samson served as the acting chief deputy. Desjardins had intended the appointment to be permanent, but money was a problem.

The commission offered a salary of $42,000, the lowest in Maine for a chief deputy.

While he was acting chief, Samson made his sergeant’s pay, which was substantially more. As a sergeant and the county jail’s programs director – with nearly 15 years of full-time experience in the department – Samson made between $52,000 and $54,000 a year in wages and overtime pay.

Samson liked the chief deputy’s job, but declined to take the pay cut.

“The opportunity can’t be at the cost of my family’s needs,” he said last month.

The current budget sets the salary at $33,332 to $42,224, depending on experience. The exact offer will be decided by the commission, perhaps as early as its next meeting, scheduled for July 2 at 1:30 p.m.

“It would not be a pay cut for me,” Ward said Thursday night of the high end of the scale.

The 43-year-old Oxford resident said he has spent 20 years in law enforcement.

When approached by Desjardins about the chief deputy’s position, Ward said he was interested because “it’s where I started my law enforcement career, and I have a lot of ties to Androscoggin County.”

Should he decide to take the job, he would look forward to serving citizens, especially the youth, he said. “They’re our future.”

Ward said he is planning to move to Poland, regardless of whether he becomes chief deputy.

A Sun Journal survey in April of all 16 Maine counties found that pay for chief deputies runs between $44,706 per year in Oxford County to $81,900 in Cumberland County.

“It’s been really tough,” the sheriff said. “It’s not only experience I’m looking for. I have to find somebody that I’m comfortable with.”

Desjardins said he found that with Ward, who spent 10 years with the sheriff’s office. During his time with the county, he supervised deputies in Poland and served as the anti-drug education officer in schools.

He left in 1998 to work for the Mechanic Falls Police Department. He has been working for the Oxford Police Department for more than three years.

“He’s very people-oriented,” said Ray Lafrance, Androscoggin County’s patrol captain. “I look forward to working with him.”

Ward also seemed to be a popular choice among the department’s rank and file.

“He was with us a long time,” said Sgt. David Trafford, the president of the department’s labor union. “I’ve never heard anybody say a bad word about him.”

Staff editor Mary Delamater contributed to this report.