By Taylor Boyd
The Patrick County Board of Supervisors Budget Committee on Wednesday, Feb. 17 heard several requests for increased funding in the upcoming fiscal year.
Patrick County Sheriff Dan Smith said his priority is requesting more funds for new police cars.
“I don’t think I asked for any increases anywhere except we have got to do something about the cars. Last year, we cut about $135,000, and a couple of board meetings ago, you all cut about $4,900 more.
“We’re about $140,000 from last year and this year that we’ve been cut. We’ve got to do something this year,” he said.
Smith said that while the department received two new cars because of COVID-19, more are needed. “We needed to replace four (cars) last year, and five this year. We need a total of seven cars to replace this year. Now the motor vehicles are the only capital line item that we’ve asked for that money back. Now, that $92,000 we’re asking for back we just put that in there because it was taken last year.”
Smith said the department is looking into a lease agreement to reduce the amount of money spent each year of replacing vehicles.
“Now this lease agreement we’ve talked about the first-year planning was $24,000, so it’s probably going to be less than $20,000,” he said.
Smith said the department held an auction of older cars which raised about $20,000.
“We’re going to either have to use that money to buy a car, if we don’t get any money to buy a car this year, or we can use that money to pay the first-year lease payment. So, it would not cost any increase in the budget from last year,” he said.
He said the department is looking into a 4-year lease for its motor vehicles.
“If we can do this 4-year lease, 4-years is a solid time to switch out to get the most value for us and the most value in sell price,” he said.
Smith said there is a possibility to use a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) grant to help yearly as well to offset that cost also.
“They pay a certain percentage based on what we match,” he said, and added “these cars are the most important tools we have in our jobs. We have to have a replacement plan for them. We’ve got to do something this year.”
Smith noted the call volume has increased about five percent in the past couple of years.
Mickie Martin, Emergency-911 coordinator, who hinted at her potential retirement in January, said funds are needed to help pay for the wireless mapping system.
“I would like to increase that line to get a support person to help with that,” Martin said, and added she is currently the only person in the department that does addressing in the county. “I assign all the addresses to do the new roads and all that stuff,” she said.
She said she is trying to teach someone else in the department how to do the mapping “but this is something that I’ve been doing for 20 years, and it’s going to take a while for her to take it on.”
Smith said there are 11 dispatchers between the sheriff’s department and the 911 office.
“That’s not enough,” Martin said, and noted state regulations mandate that two dispatchers are needed in the office at all times.
“We really need three on duty for about a seven-hour period during the day. Let’s just say you got two emergency medical calls coming in at the same time, you can’t do it. You need a minimum of three people to do both of them, and there’s been many instances where’s that been the case,” Smith said.
He noted that half of the dispatchers are paid for by the compensation board.
“In 1980 the compensation board took a large role in compensating back then equipment and salaries, but they don’t compensate equipment anymore. They quit that about 25 years ago, but they basically paid for a certain number of deputies and a certain number of dispatchers. So right now, five of our dispatchers are paid for by the state and six are paid for by the county,” Smith said.
Registrar Susan Taylor said the additional $30,000 she requested for her department is for help during election time.
“If I do not have a full-time person, I’m still going to need somebody coming into the office 30 days prior to an election, so we can get things ready for early voting, 45 days of early voting, and probably 30 days after the election is over with. That is $10,350 per election,” she said.
Taylor said her office is planning for three elections this year.
“We have the November election, they say there is a possibility for us to have a special election in the first of the year, and then a June primary. We just need to have somebody in there. What has changed significantly for our office is early voting and the mail-in ballots. People can request with no excuse needed and that has increased our workload,” she said.
Because the new measure took place during a presidential election, Taylor said she went back and compared the cost to previous presidential elections.
“In 2008, we had 380 mail-in ballots and 537 in-person voters. In 2020 we had 1,085 mail-in ballots and 2,608 in-person voters, so it changed things significantly for us,” she said.
“From what I heard, I think the early voting and everything was very popular,” Dr. Clyde Deloach, of the Blue Ridge District, said.
Taylor said she believes it will increase in popularity in the years to come.
“Some people weren’t even aware that it was taking place. Of course, the pandemic didn’t help anything. So, when you look, we had a little over 9,000 people who voted in the November election and with mail-in voting and in-person voting that was over 3,000 people that voted not in the precents,” she said.
Taylor said she believes the COVID-19 pandemic caused the influx of early voting.
“A lot of people were afraid to get out, so they chose to do the mail-in ballots,” she said.
“I would be inclined to support it if the committee could find the money somewhere else,” DeLoach said, adding he thinks it’s the type of thing the department will keep trying to get to make it easier for people to vote.
“I know the Electoral Board is in agreement that we need another full-time person. According to code, the Electoral Board is the one who can set the number of assistant registers and full-time and part-time, and they see the need as well as I do,” Taylor said, and added there is only so much one can go over with part-time people because of deadlines.
“You don’t have a week to wait until that person is back in that office, or sometimes you don’t have a couple of days to wait. It’s just almost impossible to train somebody that’s not in there to know what’s going on,” Taylor said.
Clerk of Court Sherri Hazelwood said she needs funds to continue employing an additional full-time worker. She said she currently has four full-time workers and “some days could use four more.”
Hazelwood said two of the salaries in the line items are paid through the state and reimbursed to the county.
“If you look at it that way, we’re only looking at $178,778.46 budget. I think it would be a good, solid investment in our workforce for this county. The returns I think would far outweigh the costs upfront,” she said, adding the salary for the additional full-time worker would be $28,000 of the budget.
She said the reinstatement of jury trials will be a huge burden on her office.
“We are now scheduling no jury trial for less than three days. The jurisdictions that have actually implemented their plans, it’s taking a full day to even pick the jury and the trial is not starting until the next day. So, that’s going to be a drain on the staff. It’s going to be a drain on the sheriff’s department. We are going to have to post deputies both at the top of the steps and the bottom of the steps to do traffic control. We’re going to have to break every two hours for cleaning. It’s going to be quite an undertaking,” Hazelwood said.
She said the only other increase she asked for was for office supplies.
“We tend to run short in that line item. Recently, we had to order file folders, which of course is a necessity, and they are not cheap,” she said.
