AUBURN – Months of controversy over the Androscoggin County Sheriff Department’s No. 2 position ended Wednesday with a meeting that lasted only 10 minutes.

The three-member County Commission voted unanimously to approve Sheriff Guy Desjardins’ appointment of Michael Ward as chief deputy.

Moments later, the 43-year-old patrol officer from Oxford took the oath of office from county Clerk Patricia Fournier.

“We don’t want to let you get away,” Fournier joked.

The job has been vacant since early May, when Desjardins demoted acting Chief Deputy Eric Samson under pressure by the commission. Commissioners argued that Samson was doing the job of the chief deputy but was getting the higher wage of an experienced sergeant.

Samson refused to take the $10,000 pay cut needed to keep the promotion, so Desjardins had to look elsewhere. He interviewed several applicants.

Then, he called Ward.

“I was honored to hear from him,” Ward said Wednesday. “Androscoggin County is where I started.”

And he has long wanted to be a chief deputy.

“Ask anybody I’ve worked with over the years,” Ward said. “They’ll all tell you about my goal.”

And unlike Samson, the pay seemed to work. Ward accepted the commissioners’ salary offer of $42,224.

He’ll make about the same amount of money in the job as he would have as an Oxford cop with opportunities for overtime, he said.

The agreement relieved Desjardins, who worried that he might be unable to get anyone to accept the salary, the lowest of any chief deputy in Maine.

But it came with mixed emotions.

On Wednesday morning, Desjardins and Ward both attended the funeral for James Rioux, a longtime Lewiston officer who died last week of lung disease.

When the afternoon meeting with commissioners ended so quickly, both men were reeling.

“This solves lots of issues,” Desjardins said.

Though Ward was sworn in on Wednesday, he won’t start until Aug. 3. Major changes within the department are unlikely, he said.

Initiatives such as catching speeders near schools and along major roads will be a priority, he said.

He also plans to be visible. Desjardins will introduce Ward to selectmen and councilors during his visits with town and city leaders across the county, he said.

“My door is always open to the public,” he said. “I don’t want anybody to think they can’t talk to me.”

In parts of the county, particularly in Poland and Mechanic Falls, Ward is well-known.

For much of the 1990s, he had worked as the designated deputy for Poland. He worked with kids in Poland and Minot in the DARE program and spent five years, from 1998 to 2003, as a full-time police sergeant in Mechanic Falls.

He also spent three years, from 2004 to 2007, as a manager of the Poland Spring Resort in Poland.

“It was a great opportunity,” he said, but he wanted to be a police chief.

That he has made it is only beginning to sink in, he said.