Wednesday, March 31, 2004
|
Wednesday, March 31, 2004 |
| County seeks more control of Sheriff By JOHN THOMPSON and By JOHN MUNFORD The top two elected Fayette County officials met this week to hash out what has become an escalating war of control over money and property. No outcome was divulged after Sheriff Randall Johnson and County Commission Chairman Greg Dunn conferred with the county attorney at 2 p.m. Tuesday. The latest dispute is over a building the county contends the sheriff built without going through proper channels. “There used to be a helipad there, and now we’ve got a tin building next to a $50 million justice facility,” said Dunn. The building in question faces Jimmie Mayfield Boulevard at its intersection with South Jeff Davis Drive in Fayetteville. The structure is believed to house the department’s helicopter, Dunn said. Dunn said the building just appeared out of nowhere, and county officials don’t know the cost of the building or what funds were used to pay for it. “We’re just assuming it was drug funds,” Dunn said. That brings up the other disputed area: Who gets to control hundreds of thousands of dollars annually seized in drug raids. Johnson said after the meeting with Dunn and the county attorney Tuesday afternoon that he was forwarding the letter to the sheriff’s department’s attorney to prepare a response to the commission’s demands. The sheriff was highly critical of Dunn and the letter, which was signed by all five county commissioners. “He’s just trying to micromanage the county,” Johnson said of Dunn. “He’s power hungry. ... He’d like to run every aspect of the business.” The county has now stipulated several requirements to reestablish the separation of powers between the two entities, including a better accounting of drug funds. In a letter to Johnson dated March 26, the Fayette Board of Commissioners said the department is “increasingly encroaching upon those areas which are clearly the responsibility of the Board of Commissioners.” Because the building was built on county property without following budgetary guidelines or obtaining a building permit, the County Commission said the separation of powers must be reestablished. The county issued several demands to the Sheriff’s Department, including: • Remove the hangar building. • Make all purchases through the county’s purchasing department. • Use the county fleet maintenance facility for all repairs. • Purchase only equipment detailed in the current county budget. Additionally, the county is taking action to have all federal drug confiscation funds directed to the county’s finance office for accounting purposes. “This will provide us with an audit trail,” Dunn said. The commission chairman emphasized this had nothing to do with the daily law enforcement duties of the Sheriff’s Department. “That’s just not the way you do business,” said Dunn. “We’re just trying to set procedures, and make sure they’re followed.” About the funds confiscated from drug seizures, Johnson said elected officials can get jealous about those monies and want to tell the department how to spend the funds. “We’ll do what’s right, but we’re not going to let the county commissioners run our department,” Johnson said. Johnson, who is elected by Fayette voters and not appointed by the county commission, said he thought the county might attempt such tactics with other constitutional officers. The commission has some degree of control over the sheriff’s department’s purse strings in budgetary concerns. This is not the first clash between Johnson and the county commission in recent months. A dispute over the county marshal’s office led to the commission suing Johnson for refusing to jail prisoners arrested by the county marshals. Johnson contends the marshal’s office is operating illegally as a county police department. Commissioners contend it is not a police agency but its marshals are sworn police officers who must sometimes make traffic and criminal arrests as they enforce county ordinances and patrol county property. A temporary agreement was reached between Johnson and the commissioners so marshal’s prisoners can be housed at the Fayette County Jail until the civil suit is settled.
| ||