Sheriff wins personnel changes and forfeiture fund allocations; committee debates academy reimbursement agreements

The county sheriff’s office presented multiple personnel and budget items to the Public Safety Committee on Aug. 19 and won approval for several routine actions while prompting a committee discussion about training reimbursement.
The committee approved a pay-grade change for the county’s senior mechanic that increases salary by $2,021 and carried a motion to fill a deputy sheriff position after a probationary officer did not meet the requirements for appointment. The committee also approved budget amendments to record insurance proceeds for vehicle repairs and to record monies received from the district attorney’s forfeiture funds.
The sheriff requested authority to send recruits to Zone 5 academy with the cost to come from forfeiture funds; the committee carried that authorization. Committee members raised a recurring concern that the county pays academy costs for recruits who later leave county employment and discussed creating a reimbursement or retention agreement to recover training costs if staff depart soon after training.
“Those individuals that go through… if they make it and then they go somewhere else, they should be reimbursing the county, at least for a portion of it,” one supervisor said during discussion. Committee members asked staff to research language similar to agreements used for other county-funded training and to return with options. The sheriff confirmed recruits are on payroll and receive salary during academy training.
All personnel and budget motions noted on the Aug. 19 agenda were carried on voice votes; no individual roll-call tallies were recorded in the meeting transcript.
Committee members also adopted a resolution authorizing a routine financial transfer connected to a departmental allocation for the September schedule of duties and carried a resolution related to a settlement distribution for law enforcement use under forfeiture rules.