| Sheriff’s View #35 for Aug. 24 to 28, 2009 |
By: Sheriff J.B. King
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Posted: Tuesday, August 25, 2009 5:19 pm
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Sheriff J.B. King
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Welcome aboard one more time for the latest news that might affect the operation of the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office. We have been quite busy of late and we are improving somewhat in our manpower on the road. We got one deputy back to work who had been out for his annual two weeks of military training. Then we have the case of the missing “grandma” deputy who has been out of state for the birth of a grandchild. Her vacation time is almost up and we get her back this next week.
We had been tempted to call grandma deputy and tell her to cut the vacation short, drop the new grandbaby, and return to work. Turns out that none of my command staff (me included) were brave enough to make that call so she enjoyed the entire vacation time she requested. We will slowly get back up to full strength on the road.
Meanwhile in the jail staff we are still short one member of the staff who is out for a medical problem for an extended period. Since we only have five jail staff members to start with who are trying to cover the jail on a 24/7/365 basis you can imagine what kind of coverage we have with four people on the 24/7/365 basis. But we know the county likes to pay out those overtime dollars and we sure will rack up a bunch of them among the jail staff in August.
Our jail count has slowly increased back into the low sixties once again and we are housing more inmates out of county. At this time it still looks like we will have a decent chance to come in slightly under budget for inmate board this year.
We have been trying to round up equipment that we will need in the jail when the folks from Advanced Correctional Healthcare take over on Sept. 1. We have secured an exam table with the help of friends and all we have to do is go pick it up. At this time it appears that we will be fully ready for the ACH changeover on the first of the new month.
During the past week we spent far more time than normal helping control traffic at the sites of a whole bunch of traffic crashes. There seems to have been one nasty crash after another every day last week. Please drive with care the members of the entire emergency response system around these parts are very tired and cranky.
I am returning to the column at this time. I had to leave the office to respond to an active alarm. Both of us on duty started toward the alarm and one car broke down on the way. We have had it towed to a mechanic who is looking at it and hopefully can repair the car quick. This day is not going well and right now we do not have spare cars at the office. Both of our spare cars are in service right now replacing other cars that are in the shop.
Besides the vehicle breakdown, we were just notified that one of our inmates at the Phelps County Jail is now headed to a St. Louis area hospital and may well be there for some time. We have a jail staff member chasing after the ambulance to assume the guard position. That leaves three jail staff members to do the 24/7/365 job here.
Then to add insult to injury my office computer just had some kind of PC burp and I lost several paragraphs from this column. I did a reboot of the system and I am back to work at this time. All of this sure does make me wonder what will happen next.
Several of my deputies have asked me to remind everyone that if you do not have a good address displayed in front of your home we may not find you in the middle of the emergency. I know I handled a call a few days ago and I could not find the correct address because nobody in that neighborhood had addresses displayed. So please post your address.
I would like to remind everyone that we are headed toward that time of the year when the Shop with a Cop Christmas program will once again rise to the top of the list of jobs. We are determined to host more needy kids this year and that means we will have to raise money for the shopping. We will let you know whenever an event is scheduled.
I am at the point where I think I better close out while I can. Please drive with care and please keep your actions legal; we do not need you in the jail. But as I have said before, if you are determined to spend time in our jail, be assured that the lights do work.
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