Rutherford County and its Sheriff are going to court. Hearings begin tomorrow as Sheriff Truman Jones argues that he needs money to substantially expand his staff, even though the county commission turned down the request for several years in a row.
Attorney Terry Fann represents Sheriff Jones in the case. He says officers are regularly working overtime, but soon that won’t be enough. Fann says the Sheriff needs nearly 150 new employees in order to be effective.
“This is a vital need of the sheriff’s department. For patrol-our county’s one of the fastest growing in the nation, let alone the state. We continue to grow at record pace, and with the population needs, the needs of the detention center, the needs of courthouse security, the sheriff believes that the requests he’s made in these budgets are at a critical stage.”
The total cost of hiring and outfitting the new staff is nearly 9-million dollars.
If the court orders an increase to the sheriff’s funding, Finance Director Lisa Nolen says the county would have to dip into its fund balance. That’s money saved in previous years by coming under budget and set aside as a sort of rainy day fund.
“In one year, where it’s unexpected, we could go into our fund balance and use that accumulation that we’ve had over the years. But we have a policy that says we have to always maintain 15% in fund balance, so if we dip down below that we’ll have to make up for that, plus, for the whole year salaries in next year’s budget.”
The case will be heard in Rutherford County Circuit Court, but the presiding judge is Allen Wallace of Houston County. Rutherford County Judge James Clayton recused himself from the case.
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