A proposal to create a lieutenant position in the sheriff's patrol division was presented during Cole County's Dec. 10 budget discussion. The board was shown an organizational chart and an estimated cost of roughly $110,000 including benefits; staff said about $44,000 could be offset by eliminating one SRO (school-resource-officer) position at Blair Oaks.

Commissioners discussed possible funding sources for the remainder of the cost and focused on opioid-settlement receipts and the law-enforcement sales-tax fund as near-term offsets. Staff summarized current opioid-settlement balances and projected annual receipts of roughly $100,000, while cautioning that opioid money has restrictions and must be reported against eligible uses.

After debate over whether recurring personnel costs should rely on settlement receipts, commissioners agreed to add the position to the budget and to adjust opioid-grant-expenditure lines to account for the additional personnel reimbursement the sheriff requested. The commission directed staff to make bookkeeping adjustments and to monitor restrictions on opioid funds.

Next steps: staff will adjust budget lines to add the position and the reimbursement entries and will return any follow-up questions about allowable opioid expenditures to ensure compliance.