June 9, 2006 The Sheriff and Accountability (TPTS Part V)

The Perfect Tax Storm (Part V):

A previous June 1 posting (scroll down to see the post) dealt with the Sheriff's Department budget request. During that meeting, Commissioner Joe Spoone decided that the gas line item for the Sheriff's Dept. was too high. He proposed cutting the gas budget by $30,000 (from $170,000 down to $140,000).

Following the exchange between Commissioner Spoone and Capt. Moore over gasoline, I asked Capt. Moore if he would request that the Sheriff provide the mileage records for all Sheriff's Dept. vehicles (with the exception of undercover cars).

Mileage information for all taxpayer-funded county vehicles is something that the commission asked all departments to provide---just once a year.

Each department was asked to jot down the mileage and condition (poor, fair, good, excellent) for each vehicle once a year and include this information on its state-required asset listing.

When the asset listing for 2005 was assembled by County Mayor David Purkey's office, it did not include the mileage information that commission had requested for any vehicles.

When I then requested the mileage/condition information from each department, every department--except the Sheriff's Department-- was extremely co-operative in providing mileage/condition data for their vehicles.

The Sheriff's response, however, was a very clear "no" to my request for this information. Click here or click on the October 2005 archives (bottom right of this page) and then scroll down to the October 27 post to read the Sheriff's comments.

Taking a mileage reading once a year and recording it is not a difficult thing to do to promote accountability and to provide a record for determining short and long-term replacement needs.

The Commission made a simple request, but with the Sheriff's "track record" (no pun intended) on vehicle information, the outlook for a positive response this year is probably no better than it was last year..