Dan Deming Sheriff Randy Henderson
HUTCHINSON, Kan. – As we have been telling you, Reno County Commission Chair Dan Deming is questioning what he sees as excessive overtime for personnel at the Reno County Correctional Facility. During the County Commission meeting, he read a summary of a report he says he has been working on for some time and talked about the excess overtime.
Deming noted that over the past two years, the county added eight new jail positions which they needed because of the increased space in the new jail. The cost of the new positions according to Deming is $334,000 which is reflected in the 2016 budget.
But, he says there has been overtime paid which has been over budget since 2013 of more then $724,680 which he says is more then double over what was budgeted. That includes the first three quarters of this year.
The total since 2013 totals $1,406,540 according to Deming. He says the jail was budgeted for about $695,000 in overtime during this time period.
But, Sheriff Randy Henderson told the commission that the numbers are not accurate. He also commented on the way Commissioner Deming brought forward this issue saying he could have come to him and they could worked together as a team. Sheriff Henderson and also notes that with the overall budget of his department, they not over budget, in fact have worked hard to make sure they are within their budget. .
Sheriff Henderson says that they started the year with a $20,000 bill because no one in his department or with county administration caught that an insurance payment for the new jail was due.
Deming also mentioned in his report that the sheriff has high paid staff working in the jail such as detectives and patrol officers. Sheriff Henderson says that is simply not true, in fact says no detectives or patrol officers have been working in the correctional facility since it opened.
In the end, they agreed to try to work together to bring some the cost of overtime, but not before the sheriff told Deming that he’s an elected official and that the county commission can tell him the numbers for his budget, but not how to spend that money. He also told Deming to stop trying to micro-managing his people.