Angelica Ramos
Contributing Writer
MONTGOMERY COUNTY – Montgomery County Sheriff Hank Partin addressed the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors during their Monday, Nov. 25 meeting stating that the jail needs more staff on duty.
They require a specific number of deputies on shift at a time to preside over the jail every day and currently with the number of deputies they have, Partin explained they are spread thin.
“Recently,” Partin said, “and recently is the last couple years to me, we have noticed a concerning trend that’s caused us some pretty major concern. So, a little bit of background, we have four deputies assigned to four shifts that work 12 hours each, so two daylight and two midnight.”
Partin explained the jail has 29 employees and 16 of them work 12-hour shifts. The few that don’t are federally mandated positions that work 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day, and don’t work holidays or weekends. Partin also said sometimes they have to hold their employees over to provide coverage.
“Let’s concentrate on the 4 p.m. hour,” Partin said in proposing a typical scenario, “from there until the 8 o’clock hour the next morning. So, at 6 p.m. four deputies will come in to relieve the four who have been on the floor during the day. One of those deputies is immediately not used on the floor because they are locked in the control room and cannot leave. That shift is down to three people. One of those deputies is sick, they’re off, family death, FMLA, whatever they’re not there. At 10 at night, we have a medical emergency. Sheriff’s Office policy – we don’t travel with one deputy, always two deputies. If there’s only two people left in the jail and we have a medical emergency that the rescue squad can’t take because they’re an inmate, we have to take them. You can see where I’m going with this. We have some major issues. Hardly ever is there a time when all three of the remaining deputies are working because we’re working so much that they have so much comp time built up. We have to let them off for the comp time and then there’s training and everything else that deputies are off for, that anyone’s off for. Long story short, we have for years been doing what many, many other agencies have been doing, which is working far too short, far too hard for too many hours with not enough people trying to cover more work.”
Comparing the current jail staffing to other counties like Roanoke County, Partin explained Montgomery County is well behind in those numbers and they’ve been making it work for a long time, but they should be on par with the surrounding counties. He explained that at a minimum they need four more deputies, but in reality they need eight more. However, he said, he and his department were only present to request four new deputy staffing positions.
In the original agenda for the Board of Supervisors meeting, the presentation from Partin was not to be voted on; it was just to be heard. The Board of Supervisors made a motion to vote and allocate funds and staffing positions for the jail. They voted to approve eight new positions instead of the four that were originally asked for so that the sheriff’s department can hire the deputies they need.