Sheriff McNeal lays out 2025 workload spike, detention-center defects and staffing steps
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Summary
Sheriff McNeal told the Marlborough County Council the office saw increases in calls for service, arrests and overdoses in 2025, described steps taken to shore up staffing and equipment, and said engineers found structural and drainage defects at the county detention center that must be fixed.
Sheriff McNeal reported that as of the 2025 budget year the sheriff's office had expended roughly 49% of its operating allotment and the detention center about 48%, describing staffing, operational and facility challenges facing county law enforcement.
"We began our budget year in 07/01/2025, we began our budget at $2,000,974,635," McNeal said, and added that the department has hired 20 staff over the past year while losing 12, shrinking a vacancy gap from about 14 officers to roughly three. To reduce overtime and retain personnel, he said two positions were frozen and those salaries reallocated to existing staff.
McNeal flagged fleet and equipment shortfalls: the office is assigned 40 vehicles, seven are inoperable and many have more than 100,000 miles, he said, adding that high mileage contributes to maintenance downtime. He recommended modernization priorities including mobile data terminals and upgrades to the records-management system after the vendor sale increased ongoing costs.
He described service and enforcement statistics that, he said, reflect heightened workload: total calls for service rose from 5,901 in 2024 to 6,351 in 2025 (a 7.6% increase), total arrests rose from 541 to 630 (a 16.4% increase), narcotics arrests rose from 86 to 100 (16.3%), fentanyl-related arrests increased from 8 to 15, and suspected overdose mapping showed 92 incidents in the county this year. "If you know somebody that's selling, let somebody know," McNeal said in urging community reporting.
McNeal outlined grants awarded and requested: a Department of Public Safety (DPS) body-camera reimbursement of $21,300.60, a $10,000 nonreimbursable highway-safety overtime grant, and a JAG radio-upgrade grant of $66,860 with a 10% county match (about $6,686). He said two pending grants (an MDT project and a separate project referenced as a "Melody Plate" walkthrough) had been awarded but final amounts were not yet known.
On the county detention center, McNeal said Moseley Architects, Thomas & Sutton surveyors and others conducted assessments and identified "long-standing structural deficiencies" in ventilation and condensation that have contributed to mold and mildew, and substandard drainage due to high moisture in the site soils. "We don't know what it's gonna cost," he said of repairs, "but we do know that it has to be fixed." He thanked the council for directing the architectural survey work and said staff would return with cost estimates once consultants finalize their reports.
McNeal also described programmatic changes used to reduce personnel costs: several civilian staff were retrained and classified as "class 3" officers to allow them to attend academy training and operate in the field without a sworn officer escort (he cited the victim's advocate and the prevention officer as examples). He reported that 84 registered offenders were active in the county's registry and that compliance was current for 2025.
The sheriff closed by inviting council members to review the compiled package of operational and financial materials he provided and to contact his office with follow-up questions. "I'll be glad if you call me, and we'll go through the numbers," he said.
Next steps: McNeal said engineers would finalize cost estimates for detention-center repairs and the department would pursue awarded and pending grants and federal appropriations requests to fund records, MDTs and other technology upgrades.
