MEMPHIS, Tenn. — It was a time of transition in Juvenile Court.
The Sheriff was preparing to take over security in the court rooms and the jail, but he asked for $2-million more from the county tax payers to do it.
But the Sheriff wasn’t even there to present the plan.
He was in Texas.
Instead he sent his administrate staff to handle the firing squad.
The Sheriff’s Department said it needed the money to pay juvenile detention officers, and bring them up to the SCSO training standards.
Shelby County Commissioners had a lot of questions about this request.
They wanted to know why things seemed to get more expensive when the Sheriff’s Department took over.
Commissioner Willie Brooks started off by asking, “Can you sort of walk us through this 2-million dollar increase you’re requesting?”
Sheriff Bill Oldham’s executive staff had a lot of explaining to do Wednesday.
The SCSO was set to takeover juvenile court security in the upcoming fiscal year, at the request of Juvenile Court Judge Dan Michael.
Judge Michael and the Juvenile Court Clerk gave their security budget to the Sheriff as part of the takeover.
That’s more than $7-million, but Wednesday they said it wasn’t enough.
“$250-thousand of that money will not happen again. I need to do that for the training process,” SCSO Chief Administrative Officer Steve Leech told the commission.
Leech said he needed to train the officers, and bump up their pay.
Juvenile Court officials referred to the detention center as a volatile situation Wednesday.
They said there have been 50 on the job injuries this year, and deputies were more trained to handle this kind of job.
“It’s a difficult spot for us, but we are accustom to handling the difficult jobs,”Dan Chapman, the President of the Shelby County Sheriffs Association said.
Sheriffs representatives said they planned to have about 10 less deputies in the detention center when their detail takes over, but commissioners told WREG they would work it in the deal that all the current security staff would keep their jobs.
Will they get the money?
That has yet to be determined.
