Crook County commissioners review sheriff's core services and three staffing-level scenarios

Crook County officials held a special Board of County Commissioners session on Sept. 26 to review the Crook County Sheriff's Office core services, state-mandated duties and three staffing-level options for patrol, jail and community corrections.

County Manager Will Van Bacter opened the meeting, saying the session was intended to present what the sheriff's office provides and to show what different levels of service would look like without getting into budget figures. "We're gonna be discussing core services for the sheriff's office," he said, and asked the board for feedback on what additional information staff should bring back.

The presentation grouped sheriff's operations into core areas'patrol, jail, community corrections (parole and probation), court security, civil process, emergency management and community engagement'and showed how services align with the board's goals on public safety and community service. Van Bacter emphasized the session was informational and that the budget committee had asked for budget recommendations at a later October meeting.

Sheriff Bill Elliott and division leaders described three staffing scenarios: an "ideal" model with full teams and specialty assignments; a mid- or critical-level model reflecting current staffing; and a bare-minimum statutory model that would force more reactive operations.

Lieutenant Drew Rasmussen, who spoke for the jail, summarized statutory requirements that govern local correctional facilities and the jail's operational constraints. He described the Crook County Justice Center as an 86-bed facility with an operational'comfort'level around 65 to 70 inmates; that figure can fall as violent or high-need inmates are held. Rasmussen said the jail currently averages about 45 to 50 inmates throughout the summer, with peaks near 70 when high-profile or high-care inmates are in custody.

Rasmussen outlined three staffing options for the jail: the ideal model (teams assigned to the justice center and courthouse, full administrative support, and capacity to house all arrests regardless of medical or behavioral risk); a critical level that would reduce night staffing and cap safe operational capacity (described as a 15-to-1 inmate-to-staff guideline that in practice could limit safe capacity to about 30 under nights-with-lockdown staffing); and a bare-minimum model in which a single deputy controls the jail floor and the sheriff or patrol must cover many functions. He said medical staffing currently includes two nurses (daily coverage, not 24/7) and a contract physician; Rasmussen called the nursing staff "nonnegotiable" for jail operations.

Lieutenant Mitch Madden described patrol staffing and workload. Patrol has responded to substantial call volumes: he reported 12,472 calls for service year-to-date and 1,764 written reports from Jan. 1 to the date of the meeting. He said the department had been operating in a "yellow" critical staffing mode and was down several positions; in that state the office is largely reactive, has reduced proactive patrols and relies on patrol to backfill jail shifts. Madden said a statutory-minimum "red" staffing model would require triaging calls and relying more on state police assistance, which would increase county liability and degrade community services.

Aaron Boyse, lieutenant for Community Corrections (parole and probation), described his division's funding model and caseloads. He said ideal staffing would provide caseloads of roughly 20 to 25 clients per PO, align with evidence-based standards and allow in-house treatment and additional mental-health services. Current staffing ("yellow") has caseloads of about 40 to 45 medium- to high-risk individuals per PO; a bare-minimum staffing scenario funded only by some state grant aid would push caseloads to 70-plus per PO and reduce supervision to monthly contacts in many cases.

Sheriff Elliott added comparative context from other counties and flagged operational pressures: three people in custody on homicide charges at the time of the meeting, and Justice Center screening year-to-date of 28,142 people, with security confiscations including 650 knives, 28 pepper sprays, 2 TASERs and 7 firearms reported by the sheriff's office.

Commissioners asked for additional data and tables that would place the three staffing levels side-by-side across divisions and requested more detailed information about: the time deputies spend covering flagged court security cases (duration and frequency), the amount of patrol coverage on state highways and reciprocal support from other agencies, and projected effects if state funding for community corrections were reduced. County staff said they would prepare comparative tables and follow-up information and that they planned another special meeting before an Oct. 23 tentative budget discussion to present cost estimates.

Public comment came from Nigel Bauer, a resident and search-and-rescue volunteer, who described how volunteer responses relieve deputies for long field missions and explained the operational risk when deputies are the only available responders on distant incidents.

No budget or staffing decisions were made at the session. The board adjourned following a motion to close the special meeting.

Ending: Staff will return with comparative tables and cost estimates for each service-level scenario and additional usage data requested by commissioners; the board did not take votes on funding at the Sept. 26 meeting.