Frost balking at sheriff's cost
Sarah Day — Staff WriterBLUE EARTH - Faribault County could foot the bill for small town law enforcement coverage next year.
A group of four small towns, except Walters, pays $1,000 per month for coverage from the sheriff's office. Walters pays $300 per month because of its extremely small size.
Now Frost doesn't want to pay the whole $1,000 - it wants a per-capita rate, and is even considering dropping all payments, Sheriff Mike Gormley told county commissioners Wednesday.
While the sheriff still must provide basic public safety, the office will not maintain city ordinances if Frost drops its funding.
"This is not a money-making thing," Gormley said.
When he became sheriff, Gormley combined city fees with animal control in a service agreement with small towns. Gormley said the towns paying $1,000 per month are getting a huge deal for what services normally would cost.
Commissioner Tom Loveall was skeptical about the structure, even the way it is.
"Is the sheriff's department subsidizing city costs?" Loveall asked. "At some point, the costs have got to reflect what they're using. What if Winnebago, Blue Earth, everybody said we want the same thing?"
Gormley said his office would not be able to give the same level of service that city police departments currently offer.
Commissioner Tom Loveall said discussion has come up before about a countywide police force. He is skeptical about it, but it may need to be looked at if all the small towns cut their funding.
"That would be a whole other meeting," Gormley said.
Most of the rest of the sheriff's 2010 budget is the same, or will see decreases.
Gormley spoke a little on information technology. Currently, central services coordinator Brenda Ripley takes care of most IT for the county. Her department formerly handled everything. The sheriff's office split off several years ago, but now Gormley is looking at combining once again to cut costs. He said that probably won't happen this year, since his department needs to move into the new jail first. Savings of re-combining likely would be around $25,000.
Turning to another matter, Gormley said capital outlay this year is slated at $61,000, to replace three squad cars. Commissioner John Roper questioned the need. Gormley said if he waits longer to replace the cars, the resale value will be gone and maintenance costs will rise.
Commissioner Bill Groskreutz said that because of how hard the sheriff's office runs the vehicles, if it waits any longer than three years to replace them, the county will incur higher costs.
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boohoo
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09-05-09 12:12 PM
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about time. everyone pays county taxes for the sheriff department. small towns should be allowed to use the county officers as needed as long as they know response time will be slow and the city council's will have to deal with the small problems. delavan is also doing the same thing.
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