News

County demands $750,000 for sheriff's coverage of Mills River

By Bill Moss, Published: May 18, 2016

The town of Mills River, which is currently paying $110,000 a year for a sheriff’s deputy to provide town coverage, is looking at a seven-fold increase in that cost.

The Henderson County Board of Commissioners on Wednesday voted unanimously to send a new offer to Mills River that would require the town to cover the cost of three deputies in the budget year starting July 1, 2017; five in fiscal year 2018-19; and six in 2019-20. The cost for the town would go up to $362,000 the first year, $604,000 the second year and $750,000 the third year. The cost to the town three years from now could force a tax increase of 7 cents per $100 valuation, based on the revenue per penny.
The numbers for the “enhanced coverage” are based on a study the sheriff’s office made of all the calls deputies answered in Mills River in 2015. The study showed that the Mills River deputy answered 393 during a regular 40-hour week — only a fraction of the total. Other deputies answered 4,273.
“From where I sit, it’s simple,” said Commissioner Bill Lapsley. “If I’m sitting on the City Council, I’m now in a position to vote for a Plan A or Plan B and Plan A with the sheriff’s department is still a pretty good deal.
“I think if this board decides to make this offer I think we’re due a lot of accolades for it because frankly I’m not aware of any obligation of this board to provide this level of service to any town. We’re stepping up and being a pretty good neighbor to the town of Mills River and I hope they will see this in that light because this will save them a lot of money. This is a pretty bold offer from the county and the sheriff’s department to the town of Mills River.”

Councilman Shanon Gonce was not ready to deliver accolades.

"I'd have to think that one over," he said. "I figured they'd come back with something like that. I would want to see why they think we need that much and why they would propose that we cover the whole the county service. It would be a humongous tax increase, yes it would."

"To me that’s a county service. We’re already paying it through county taxes. That’s what people out my way are saying," he said. "It’s just amazing to me that they feel like we’re going to need that many that quick. I would need to see some scientific evidence on that. If we’re needing five in the next three years are they going to need another 25 for the rest of the county? I just have to think about it. ... I just need to know where all this money’s going because I’m a county taxpayer, too.”

Although Gonce questioned the figures, the sheriff's numbers are actually close to those the City Council received when it commissioned a study on starting its own police department. A full police department with a chief and six officers would cost Mills River $1.5 million over the first three years and $700,000 a year when fully staffed, the consultant said.

Lapsley added that he understood to offer to mean that the sheriff would hire and deploy new deputies for the 24-7 coverage of Mills River, not reposition deputies from other areas of the county. Sheriff McDonald earlier told the board that he needs more deputies to cover a shortage countywide now.
“To be perfectly honest, we need more deputies across the board,” McDonald said. “If we were to hire those deputies as those monies came in we would offset the need over the next three years by four, maybe five.”

The town of Mills River is looking at starting a police department or offering garbage service as ways to meet a state requirement of services a municipality must offer. The town deputy through the sheriff's office had satisfied the requirement for enhanced coverage until a feud over the price caused County Manager Steve Wyatt and the Board of Commissioners to scrap the agreement on June 30, 2017. The two sides have restarted talks on reviving the contract.

“They’ve asked us to determine what that cost would be,” said Chairman Tommy Thompson. “At one point in time we were at a standoff where in that we basically told them, 'We’re going to take care of you for another year. After that you’re on your own.' They came back, after quite frankly realizing what the cost is, and said how about having some more talks on this."