Contract means sheriff can hire deputies

[JJT]

Contract means sheriff can hire deputies
By Venice Buhain
Oct 21, 2004 - 07:49:48 am PDT

The Columbia County Sheriff's Department will be able to hire two new deputies after signing a contract with Oregon to house some of the state's inmates. The new hires increase the county's force from five to seven officers -- 40 percent.

The Sheriff's Department's resources have been stretched in recent years. In 2003, half its budgeted overtime was used up in the first four months of the fiscal year.

The new deputies won't cure the department's overtime budget problems, but will improve its ability to patrol, especially at night when there is often one person to cover the rural areas of the county, said Sheriff Phil Derby.

The department's deputies were cut back the past few years as three retirees were never replaced, said human resources manager Jean Ripa.

Lance Ritchie of the Clatskanie Police Department and Russ George of the Scappoose Police Department have been hired as the new deputies starting Nov. 1. Derby said the Sheriff's Department will benefit from having two deputies with police experience and familiarity with the county.

The paperwork has not been completed, but two deputies will receive about $38,000 a year each, Ripa said.

The money will come from the state Department of Corrections, which will pay the county to house up to 35 inmates a day at $60 each, county officials said.

Derby said the department started started looking for state contracts all over the West Coast after U.S. immigration officials cut back the number of detainees it had been housing in Columbia County. The federal government now sends most of its detainees to a private facility in Tacoma.

Derby said that Columbia County Jail would likely house minimum- to medium-security state inmates with fewer than six months left on their sentences.

Voters have rejected three levies in the past 10 years that would have allowed the county to hire more deputies. The last $6.2 million, three-year levy would have provided for nine patrol deputies, two sergeants, corrections officers and staffers to help with writing reports, enabling the county to establish 24-hour coverage, according to levy supporters.

Many county calls go unanswered for hours, because of the lack of resources. The county often has no one on duty during graveyard shift and deputies must be called on their days off for situations that would be dangerous for one deputy to cover alone.

The county has been able to fill in some of the gaps with federal and state grants that give them a river patrol, a Sauvie Island-based deputy and a domestic violence deputy.