Pueblo County commissioners Thursday approved a collective bargaining agreement for the county sheriff’s office more than two years after its employees first voted to form a union.

The agreement follows years of turmoil between union leadership and outgoing Pueblo Sheriff David Lucero, a Democrat, who claimed in a lawsuit that a Colorado law that allows collective bargaining of county employees does not apply to sheriff offices.

The law at the center of the dispute was signed by Gov. Jared Polis in 2022, as covered in a report on the collective bargaining bill for county workers.

Lucero’s lawsuit, filed in December 2024, argued a county sheriff is not included under Colorado’s statutory definition of a county, as sheriff is its own elected constitutional office, and the law does not apply to his agency. A judge dismissed part of the lawsuit in July, and attorneys for the state asked the judge to dismiss the remaining claims earlier in August. Lucero told commissioners Thursday that he intends to direct legal counsel to pull the remaining claims.

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“The agreement sufficiently addresses the concerns that led me to seek judicial review, and I do not believe continued litigation is necessary or in the best interests of Pueblo County,” Lucero said. “I also believe ending the litigation is the fiscally responsible decision. There is no reason to continue spending taxpayer dollars litigating issues that we’ve been able to resolve through negotiation.”

County commissioners previously approved at least $45,000 to fund legal counsel for Lucero in the lawsuit.

Lucero lost the Democratic primary in his reelection bid in June to Allen Medina. Leroy Mora, an unaffiliated candidate, is also running for sheriff in the November election. Medina and Mora have both expressed support for the sheriff’s union.

The sheriff's office has been in existence for over 160 years, and there's never been a formal bargaining unit that is able to speak on the employees' behalf and have it actually be a written promise between both sides that we will work together, we will work harmoniously.

– Brad Riccillo, president of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers Local 837

Brad Riccillo, an employee of the sheriff’s office and president of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers Local 837, the state-recognized union for Pueblo Sheriff’s Office employees, said the agreement is essentially a “boilerplate contract” to create a fair starting point for the union to work with. He said he’s proud of the work those supporting the union put in to get to this point.

“The sheriff’s office has been in existence for over 160 years, and there’s never been a formal bargaining unit that is able to speak on the employees’ behalf and have it actually be a written promise between both sides that we will work together, we will work harmoniously,” Riccillo said.

The union brought in a federal mediator to get through the last round of bargaining, Riccillo said. He’s particularly happy that the agreement includes quarterly meetings between sheriff’s office leadership and union leadership to talk about any issues that arise between contract negotiations, he said.

More than half of the employees in the sheriff’s office, 220, are union members, according to Riccillo.

Reassigned to clerical work

Peter Blood, who works with the Pueblo County attorney’s office, said the contract is an “excellent beginning, but nowhere near where we need to be in the future in terms of our relationship with the labor world.”

At the Thursday meeting, Riccillo thanked the commissioners, local labor advocates, the national IBPO team and former state Representative Daneya Esgar, a Pueblo Democrat who sponsored the bill allowing county employees to unionize.

About a year ago, Gov. Polis drew attention for vetoing a separate measure that would have made union formation easier, as reported in 2025 coverage of the vetoed Colorado union bill.

“The journey was never easy,” Riccillo said. “We faced skepticism, legal and administrative hurdles, a lawsuit, retaliation, demotions, terminations and difficult days that tested our resolve. Yet through every obstacle, our members never wavered, and our numbers never dropped.”

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Lucero told commissioners his main responsibility has always been to protect his staff, taxpayers of Pueblo County and the statutory responsibilities of his office.

“When questions arose about how Colorado’s new collective bargaining law intersected with those responsibilities, I believe those were legitimate legal questions that needed clarification,” Lucero said. “At the same time, once directed to bargain, we did so, and we continued negotiating while those legal questions were being addressed.”

The union in 2024 filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the state over Lucero’s refusal to engage in collective bargaining. The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment denied Lucero’s appeal of the state decisions saying he must bargain with the union before filing the lawsuit, and Lucero then filed the lawsuit against the state and the union.

The department dismissed a different unfair labor practice complaint the union filed related to wages in May.

In 2024, Lucero reassigned Riccillo to clerical work in a move that labor advocates claimed was retaliation for working with the union.

Riccillo is still working in a clerical role. He said he’ll speak to the next sheriff about his options after the November election determines who will succeed Lucero.