Williams County Sheriff Asks For More Staffing

The Williams County Sheriff’s Office asked for more help at the county com­mis­sion­ers meet­ing on Mon­day.

Williams County Sher­iff Steve Towns appeared before the com­mis­sion­ers to request fund­ing to hire three new deputies.

If the com­mis­sion­ers approve them, the new deputies would each earn $18.07 per hour.

Accord­ing to Towns, the Sheriff’s Office is under­staffed, now down to 14 deputies from a peak of 22 back in 2009.

The reduc­tion in staff comes at the same time that calls for help have increased, by as much as 25 per­cent this year over last year. The sher­iff attrib­utes the increase mainly to the increase in drug cases, and specif­i­cally metham­phet­a­mine and heroin cases locally.

Com­mis­sion­ers responded by say­ing that although they back the sheriff’s office, county rev­enues are down sig­nif­i­cantly, and any money shifted to the sheriff’s office would have to come at the expense of another county depart­ment.

Com­mis­sion­ers said they will review the sheriff’s hir­ing request as part of their ongo­ing process of review­ing of all 2015 depart­ment bud­get requests by the end of the year.