Sheriff’s overtime hours come in to question at Fiscal Court meeting

Judge/Executive Kevin Neal holds a document that showed overtime discrepancies submitted by the Sheriff's Office since the last Fiscal Court meeting.
Judge/Executive Kevin Neal holds a document that showed overtime discrepancies submitted by the Sheriff’s Office since the last Fiscal Court meeting.

BENTON – [VIDEO FOLLOWS REPORT] Marshall County Fiscal Court met in regular session Tuesday, January 17, 2017.

In Correspondence, a Request for Bids by the Jackson Purchase Local Officials Organization, Inc. for the sale of four vehicles; 1998 Ford ½ Ton Pickup, 1999 Ford ¾ Ton Pickup, 2006 Dodge Caravan (blue) and 2006 Dodge Caravan (white). Bids will be accepted until January 23, 2017 at 1:30 pm. More on this can be found by clinking this link to the Fiscal Court web page under January 17th meeting – Documents.
http://www.marshallcountyky.gov/fiscal-court/

The Jackson Purchase Local Officials Organization, Inc. is also accepting bid for the sale of property located at 251 Housman Street, Mayfield, Kentucky. Bids will be accepted through January 23, 2017 at 1:30. For more information click on the link above.

The Marshall County Sanitation Department is accepting bids on a 2017 30-35 HP tractor by close of business on January 20, 2017. Specs can be picked up at the Judge/Executive’s Office. For more information click on the link above.

NEW BUSINESS
2017 Holiday Schedule
The Holiday Schedule was amended to observe the Christmas holiday on Monday, December 25th and Tuesday, December 26th to follow the state holiday schedule

Ambulance Management Contract
A letter has been drafted but not sent, from Judge/Executive Kevin Neal as formal notice to Marshall County Hospital to terminate the existing Ambulance Service Management Contract that has been in existence since 1996. Hospital Chief Executive Officer Mr. David Fuqua, has no knowledge of the drafted letter.

The Fiscal Court will issue requests for proposals for management of the ambulance service in the near future to be competitive and to better meet the needs of the ambulance service. The current contract for the management service is $202,000.

Bid Advertisement
The court approved the advertisement for bids on county uniforms.

Possum Trot/Sharpe Fire Protection District
The court accepted their June 30, 2016 Audit Report.

Treasurer’s Report
The following is the Treasurer’s Report Summary Listing for the month ending December 31, 2016.

treasurer summary

 

Sheriff’s Office
Judge/Executive Neal was encouraged to see the Sheriff come in within deputy hire maximum saying “that’s moving forward”, after addressing the overtime situation earlier in a letter in October to Sheriff Kevin Byars which advised him that if he continued to spend the way he was, he would be over.

Neal followed that statement by saying that every time they more forward, they find more issues saying, “It was clear to me when I came into office that one agency that was managed questionably according to the audit report was the Sheriff’s department.”

Neal cited that documents submitted and comments made is concerning to him when his goal is to help saying, “We’re only going to succeed as a county agency when we work together.”

According to Neal, “a lot of time and effort from his staff went into the Sheriff’s Department coming in under the deputy hire” and then referred to the deputy overtime conversation at the last Fiscal Court meeting and said documents that were submitted from the department had discrepancies, specifically in overtime.

“We’ve got issues of employees that were paid too much, we’ve got issues of employees that weren’t paid enough”, Neal said. “Just in the documents that were submitted.”

It was approved at the last Fiscal Court meeting to allow the overtime hours in the Sheriff’s budget to be raised to 4,000 which put the department’s budget for 2017 at $1,382,441.62. Neal said the motion to give the department $50,000 more was “basically throwing money at a problem.”

When talk of the county recently becoming wet came into question, it was noted that Federal money covers DUI overtime hours and is 100% refundable. But it was denoted that many variables come into play when recording DUI overtime which officers are required to indicate on their time sheets. A new category has been created on their reports by the department to track just DUI overtime.

Neal said his point in all of this is concerning overtime discussions, not the job that the deputies are doing, saying, “We have to get to the root of the problem. These conversations are tough, I don’t like having this conversation, but I have to because it’s my job. It’s been a year, I’ve been in this office for a little over a year and I can tell you there’s a problem administratively in your office. I’ve tried to help and I just keep getting pushed back.”

Neal also referred to FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act), which is the department’s responsibility to notify employees of their rights under FMLA citing a current employee that is off due to an injury who is eligible due to the required 1,250 hours worked over the last 12 months. This employee worked over 1,500 hours and was recently notified by the Judge/Executive’s office of their FMLA rights.

Commissioner Rick Cocke spoke to the timeliness of the issue of raising the overtime hours by 4,000 at the last meeting, saying he felt like there were no discussions held before making this decision. Commissioner Bob Gold stated that whether or not it (overtime) is used, he felt like the Sheriff needs the tools to do as good a job as he can especially with the increases in alcohol related issues.

“I have no problem working with you Judge, it’s not intentional in any way, shape, form or fashion”, Byars said.

Neal, referring again to the documents submitted last week with discrepancies, said, “We’ve got two documents created by the same person that are inconsistent.” The documents were created by Sheriff’s office personnel from a spread sheet, according to Byars.

“The tax payers are going to be in the front seat”, Neal said. “We are going to fix this problem. At a minimum I’m here to help.”

Neal agreed that finding a mean average of overtime hours is necessary. The current figure was based off of the month of January. A projection which Byars feels will not be accurate citing busy summer months and events in the coming year such as the eclipse with the added population in the county during that time to which Neal said, that is what he wants Byars to articulate to him when it comes to setting the budget.

“My philosophy is, and I told my staff the same thing, we’re not going to let you fail”, Neal said. “If we let you fail, I take that as we failed our part. But we can’t be diving into the details of your operation for the next however many years.”

Neal suggested that the Labor Cabinet do a free site survey to help with any questions and management of the Sheriff’s Department and spoke of goals such as a canine unit for the department as things to strive for.

Byars said he will work with the court’s decision on whether they amend the addition of 4,000 overtime hours to the budget as well as work with the Labor Cabinet. His department is operating with 19 deputies within the approved budget, one less than the previous year and Byars feels an additional deputy would cost less than overtime hours paid.

Neal wanted to amend the budget to remove the added 4,000 overtime hours and questioned the commissioners what their thoughts were on that. Commissioner Cocke asked for more time to view the documents submitted before making a decision on amending the budget, documents that were received in an email on December 30th without much discussion according to Cocke, to which Neal said the information submitted to all commissioners and himself didn’t take long to look over and see that there were discrepancies.

All three commissioners stated they were not prepared at that time to amend the budget by removing the 4,000 overtime hours added to the budget at the last Fiscal Court meeting.

See the video below for complete court meeting proceedings.

The next meeting of the Fiscal Court will be Tuesday, February 7, 2017.