County commission holds hearings on sheriff's budget

Saturday, January 7, 2017

jbrann.ndm@gmail.com

Prior to the start of the three-hour hearing for the sheriff's office and jail budget, Vernon County Sheriff Jason Mosher gave an update on the first batch of prisoners from Springfield, being housed at Nevada.

"We sent out two prisoner transports on Tuesday, one to Springfield and the other to Taney County, to pick up city of Springfield prisoners," Mosher said. "They brought back a total of 18 prisoners whom we booked into our jail."

Since then, four have bonded out and were returned on another day's trip to Springfield. While in Nevada, some have been arraigned in Springfield court via videoconference. The number of prisoners changes daily.

In the budget hearing, Cindy Thompson, northern district commissioner, asked the sheriff who pays for housing those who bond out.

"Under the contract we have with Springfield, if a prisoner is booked into our jail, Springfield has to pay the full day's rate even if that person bonds out and returns to there the same day," explained Mosher.

In the three-hour budget hearing, the sheriff's two larger capital requests were for replacement of vehicles and software.

"Several years ago we changed from replacing things as they fall apart or when we had the money to now having a routine maintenance schedule," Mosher said. "We're doing this with vehicles and I'm moving towards doing this at the jail.

Mosher gave the example of replacing a tire only when it failed, to monitoring mileage and changing all four at the same time.

"Four high speed tires are not cheap but this greatly reduces the danger of a blow-out during a high speed chase," said Mosher.

Some $68,500 was placed into the budget for purchase or lease of two vehicles, which likely would involve the trade in of older ones.

"While I can't promise we'll always be able to stick to it, by trading out vehicles before we've driven them into the ground we'll have better trade-in value and more reliable vehicles," said presiding commissioner, Joe Hardin.

The second largest proposed capital outlay is for replacement of the software for the computer automated dispatching system which routes and provides location information. The system adds a voice stamp, stating the date and time of each speaker, which is often subpoenaed for use in court.

The options were to purchase outright at $130,000 or a three-year, $50,000 per year lease, which includes annual upgrades. While final decisions will not be made until next week, commissioners penciled in the annual lease cost.

As the revenues and expenditures were reviewed for 10 separate areas managed by the sheriff, the first thing, which stood out on the revenue side, was a large outstanding balance owed the county.

"Back in June, when the state audited the county, they specifically pointed out a small balance for prisoner housing which is owed us by a county out of state," said Mosher. "They told us we needed to be more aggressive in our collections but they didn't say a word about the $67,006.50 owed us by the state of Missouri for housing prisoners."

The state controls the rate, amount and timing for reimbursement and so the commission planned conservatively.

A line item about dispatch services led to several questions.

"Overall, I think having the county doing the dispatching is working out," said Mosher. "I speak to Nevada's police chief regularly and make sure no issues arise."

The sheriff acknowledged he is short three dispatchers and has a difficult time keeping all positions filled.

"We have a lot of turnover because of what we can pay," said Mosher.

The sheriff expressed his wish the state could provide a supplement for dispatcher salaries as it currently does with deputies.

After learning that, based on salaries, the majority of deputies in Missouri qualified for food stamps and other public assistance, the Missouri General Assembly, in 2008, passed a bill to supplement salaries through a grant program known as the Deputy Sheriff's Salary Supplementation Fund.

Sheriff's apply for grants, which are funded by fees for serving certain summons, writs, subpoenas and court orders. These grant funds help to get the salaries of qualifying deputies to $28,000.

Discussion on the revenue side continued with a local law enforcement block grant of $8,210, which will be used to purchase eight new ballistic vests.

"The Department of Justice says ballistic vests have a life of five years," said Mosher. "If someone on our force is shot while wearing a vest and it's under five years old, our insurance will replace the vest."

Next on the list of department revenues was Housing Prisoners.

The sheriff reported the Vernon County jail was built to be larger than needed in order to house out of county prisoners and has done so since it first opened.

Mosher has increased capacity to 116 and can handle up to 141 on a short-term basis. Vernon County prisoners occupy between 45-55 percent of the beds. Currently, the county houses prisoners for nine other entities with the largest sources being Greene and Lawrence counties.

In 2016, the income generated by housing non-Vernon County prisoners amounted to $774,704.

A revue of department salaries showed the deputy positions to be full, the jail in need of one employee and the dispatch center, three.

Turning to jail operations, there is $10,000 in income from transporting juveniles in the four counties of the 28th judicial circuit.

"We're really about the only ones who can do it and so the other counties reimburse us," said Mosher.

In expenditures, the sheriff explained what a positive difference it has made when his office changed in mid-2015 from contracting with an outside company for meal service to now, when the jail has its own cook and kitchen staff.

"Almost every major problem we had with inmates was over food," said Mosher.

The sheriff related an incident of an inmate being served a biscuit about as flat as a pancake. When he asked to show it to the sheriff, he was told the sheriff was gone, whereupon the inmate mailed the biscuit and the sheriff got the point and a hearty laugh.

"We've saved money, reduced complaints and even the jail staff is happier," said Mosher.

Turning to utilities, the commission returned to the possibility of installing solar panels.

"Maybe in 2018 or 2019," said Hardin. "From the estimates we have, I think we could cut the jail's electric bill in half."

With the increase in the number of prisoners, the sheriff asked to increase the line item for prisoner medical services.

"When the jail was designed, an area was set aside for an infirmary and so we can isolate and treat prisoners and prevent things from spreading," said Mosher. "At times, we have the doctor come two to three times a week and we also contract local nursing care."

Self-inflicted injuries are way down because most things are treated in the infirmary.

When turning to various line items related to the dispatch center, the sheriff related a more recent challenge.

"With all the incidents and negative publicity, almost every agency is in a crisis. People don't want to go into law enforcement. We used to have a lot more applicants than jobs but not any more. It used to be hard to get into the police academy and there was a waiting list but not anymore," Mosher said,

The sheriff prefaced his review of the separate Law Enforcement Training Fund by reminding the commissioners that 2017 is when the state's old rule requiring 48 hours of continuing education over three years goes to 24 hours every year.

When a defendant is ordered to pay an amount for a certain type of restitution, these funds go into the Law Enforcement Restitution Fund, which is managed by a five person local board. The county prosecutor has utilized funds for her office and in 2016, the sheriff purchased additional beds as the jail was expanded.

Said the sheriff, "The Conceal and Carry Weapon Fund did a brisk business early in the year but with the passage of the new CCW law and the election, permit requests have slowed to a crawl. I won't spend anything from this until later in the year, when I know what it will bring in."

A fund for DARE services in Nevada R-5 and a separate one for county schools are small and quickly used for presentation materials.

The primary source of revenue for the Inmate Security Fund comes from items purchased by or for inmates. In 2016, these "excess commissary" revenues totaled $66,207.87.

From this fund, the sheriff asked to replace the jail's digital video recording system, which he stated is starting to fail. It is from this fund the newest prisoner transport van will be paid for this year.

Said Mosher, "I appreciate the inmates of Vernon County's finest bed and breakfast; they buy us stuff!"

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