Dawson County Sheriff Jeff Johnson, who also presented Thursday, asked for $351,689 to fund five more positions for E911’s GCIC unit, with a $70,337 salary, including benefits and equipment, allotted for each position.
This unit’s duties include but aren’t limited to checking warrants’ statuses, inputting time-sensitive information on missing persons or juveniles and pulling criminal histories. Additional staffing would also allow for there to constantly be a person present at the jail’s front window, providing 24-hour coverage, Johnson said.
He also requested adding two patrol deputies at $90,059 each and four unfrozen jail officer positions at $70,553 each.
“I could fill my patrol positions tomorrow should I be able to fill my jail positions, and that’s our sticking point with it right now,” Johnson said.
The sheriff’s office is also requesting funds to support national training for jail officers, at a cost of $6,820 for the first year and $4,475 for each subsequent year.
“Our jail captain has the desire–and I fully support that–to have our jail headed in that direction,” Johnson said. “We look at it as an insurance policy.”
Similarly, Fire and Emergency Services had several notable asks, as presented by outgoing Chief Danny Thompson on Aug. 24. One of Fire & EMS’ main requests is to transition all but one part-time position to six full-time positions. That change would cost $497,759 with benefits and equipment for three firefighter-EMTs and three firefighter-paramedics. The county would save more than $500,000 by eliminating the part-time positions.
The additional positions would also allow other full-time Fire & EMS employees to more easily coordinate taking time off around the holidays, Thompson added.
There are five vacancies across the stations now. Three of the four new employees for Fire & EMS were hired under the new recruit title and grade approved a few weeks ago by the BOC, interim director Jason Dooley said in follow-up comments to DCN.
“We’re starting to fill vacancies, so hopefully that will factor into their decision to fill the budget request,” Dooley said of the BOC.
Fire & EMS is also asking for six lieutenant positions, each at $92,063 including benefits, which would cost a cumulative $552,379. These positions would allow Fire & EMS to put a company officer, akin to a frontline supervisor, at stations 3 and 8, Dooley said.
Security upgrades have also been proposed at each of the department’s eight fire stations. Funding of $105,000 would outfit all of the stations with either badge access and/or video camera surveillance.
These proposed upgrades would be part of an ongoing plan to sequentially update the stations one at a time, Thompson told the board. Upgrade costs would be spread out over the next four fiscal years, with $30,000 proposed in FY2023 and $25,000 proposed for each of the following three years.
Volunteer stations 4 and 5 are due for a rebuild as part of the department’s five-year plan, so the increased security measures can be implemented into the new building plans, he added.
Jason Dooley pointed to break-ins to firefighters/EMS personnel’s vehicles four to five years ago as part of the reason for the desired upgrades. He also called the July 2019 killing of Amy Gibson in front of Station 7 “a huge factor.”
“We want them (the fire stations) to remain public buildings, but there also has to be control of who has access,” the interim director said. “We don’t mind people coming in as long as we know that they’re there for the right reasons.”