Big funding ask for LCSO

Jeremy Nash news-herald.net

Loudon County Sheriff’s Office is seeking additional tax money to help cover 2019-20 budget requests for patrol and jail.

The request comes as contractor Rouse Construction is hard at work on a jail expansion that LCSO representatives believe will roughly double the needed personnel based off a staffing analysis conducted by County Technical Assistant Service representative Bill Hart.

Hopes are for the expansion to be complete in January.

“To fund our request from this year’s budget would be 20 tax pennies,” Jimmy Davis, LCSO chief deputy, said.

A total sheriff and jail request increase related to additional employees is $3.19 million. LCSO’s budget includes three additional patrol deputies, two school resource officers and one court officer for $716,862.

The jail portion includes 31 new corrections officers, four sergeants and one corporal for $2.47 million.

Total budget requests are $5.35 million for the jail and $5.34 million for the sheriff’s department.

“I’m not the type, and the sheriff isn’t the type, that will ask for six people hoping for three,” Davis said. “If you really just need three but you’re asking for six hoping to get what you need, I think that’s garbage. I think it’s ridiculous to do that. It gives an impression of mistrust and basically you’re lying because you’re asking for an improper request. But these are officers that we need that we can validate and we feel we can give our opinion on why that extra workforce is needed.”

Under the proposal, jail staffing would be more than double the current 28 employees.

Davis said Hart initially estimated 42 additional personnel was recommended, but after moving “some responsibilities around” with supervisors the request dropped to 36.

“We had two people do a staffing analysis and that was (Tennessee Corrections Institute), which we realized that they’re the experts,” Tim Guider, county sheriff, said. “I think Jim Hart with CTAS has a lot of respect from everybody in the state of Tennessee. I mean that’s what he does, that’s his specialty, that’s what he was trained in. … I believe in his numbers and that’s what we’re going with. Primarily because of running efficiently and taking into consideration inmate safety as well as staff safety.”

Included on the sheriff’s side are requests the department asked for last year — two SROs, one court officer and three additional patrol deputies Davis believes could help with safety.

“We’re asking for additional patrol deputies because we did a very good comparison to Lenoir City where they have about the same number of patrolmen on a nightly shift that we do,” Davis said. “Their officers make more money and Lenoir City is responsible for 6.2 square miles, where the county is responsible for 200-plus square miles but the same number of deputies, and we do about 8,000 more calls a year than Lenoir City Police Department at the sheriff’s office. We’re busier, we’ve got more area to cover.”

LCSO presented the request to the Loudon County budget committee last week. Davis said he was pleased with the meeting and plans to send commissioners the roughly 77-page CTAS report. Hopes are to also schedule a tour for commissioners to see the jail.

The facility will have 264 beds, which includes 193 new male beds and 71 female beds. There’s also room for expansion.

Commissioner Henry Cullen, who serves on the budget committee, considered the request a “shocker.”

“Now we’re going to have to work with Jimmy and Tim to see what we can work out, but right at this moment I’ve got to know a lot more about the needed people for the jail because that was the purpose of the jail was to get them all in a pod with line of sight and all that,” Cullen said. “… I’ve got to hear a good case being made for it. That is a heck of tax increase year over year.”

Cullen wants to withhold judgment until the request has been fully vetted by the committee. He said commissioners are “going to do our best to hold the line on the tax rate” in a year that also includes a potential request from Loudon County Board of Education for more money.

“It’s going to be tough,” Cullen said. “This is going to be a tough budget year. … It’s going to be a difficult tax year and I don’t think everybody’s going to get what they want.”

The request also came as a surprise to Van Shaver, commissioner, who knew additional money was going to be needed, but nothing of the proposed magnitude.

“We would have assumed it might take a few more,” Shaver said. “Of course, during all the discussion it was made very clear that with the new design, the new layout and everything that you have a situation now where two men could do the job of — because it was going to be so much better laid out and have so much more good security and monitors and camera systems and things like that. So no, I don’t think anybody was expecting this. Maybe a few, but nothing like this.”

Shaver wants to review the CTAS report. He’s unsure how much of an “appetite” taxpayers have of a potential tax increase for any department.

Hopes are to begin getting employees in place by this fall for training, Guider said.

“We’ve got to train our existing personnel too to try to operate this new jail,” he said. “They’re talking January, not sure what part of January, to be occupancy, and that could change, but we need them here to try to get started with training. It’s going to take a while to get — if we’re able to get 36, it’s going to take a while to get set up interviews, testing and getting qualified people, good people.”