Sixety-seven—that is the number of staff Allegan County Sheriff Frank Baker believes can properly handle the work of policing the county.
That number is slightly increased from the 65 he described at an April workshop for local municipal officials. The change also comes on the eve of a series of shorter, local meetings throughout the county to bring the message of the April workshop to more officials and residents.
“When we initially proposed that future state, it was truly just a minimum,” Baker said. “Based on input from the April meeting and then meeting with police chiefs throughout the county, there are services we’re no longer providing that are needed to assist them. So we decided to add additional positions.”
Baker had previously outlined a need for eight additional deputies to bolster the department’s road patrol and four detectives to reduce the burden of the investigation caseload the department now faces.
The latest list of positions ups that to six detectives.
One of those would be added to the county’s contribution to the West Michigan Enforcement Team, a regional task force that investigates drug cases and is a collaboration with other west Michigan agencies. Allegan County currently provides one deputy to the team; years ago, Baker said, it provided two detectives.
The other additional detective would be trained to extract data from cell phones and computers. Currently, Baker said, the sheriff’s office has to request that kind of assistance from neighboring counties and the Michigan State Police.
“Ultimately, their own work is their priority,” Baker said, so Allegan County’s requests take a back seat to theirs. “And they can’t continue to provide that service as our need for it grows.
“So, we’re looking at hiring someone who is trained to handle that technology. So much is reliant on our ability to retrieve that kind of data that I felt that it was really necessary to incorporate it into our overall plan.”
He said that was requested by local police departments as well.
“The idea is that the person also will be able to assist local agencies with that,” Baker said.
The need for the additional road patrol deputies remains the same.
Baker has said his department’s current staff struggles to keep enough deputies on duty to maintain five zones of road patrol. The office needs two sergeants and six patrol deputies on duty 24/7 to provide that coverage. The pool of deputies is limited enough, however, that injuries, training and vacations mean that there are seldom enough deputies to meet that goal; typically, there are only enough to divide the county up into three large sections.
The local meetings began this week with one at Allegan Township hall Wednesday, July 19. That and four others in the next month were designed to make it easy for county commissioners to hear feedback from city, township and village officials about local law enforcement needs and whether or not they would support a countywide millage to fund the new sheriff’s office positions.
Commissioners hope to decide on their own support of the millage in September.
Funding the new positions is still expected to cost roughly $1.5 million; Baker admits that, to fund the current list, that estimate should perhaps be bumped up to $1.7 million. The final number of positions, however, will ultimately be determined based on future discussions.
“Our focus has been trying to address what the community feels is important to focus on,” Baker said. “And we’re using input from of local city departments so we can provide assistance and relief to them.”
If the new positions are to be funded solely through a countywide millage, it would have to be an approximately 0.5-mill tax.
If commissioners do support a millage, they will still have to work out how any new tax would affect funding for city police as well as townships that already contract with the county for deputies that specifically patrol those areas.
Future meetings include one at Wayland Township Hall July 26, one at Gun Plain Township Hall Aug. 2, one at Fillmore Township Hall Aug. 16, and one at Clyde Township Hall Aug. 23.
Contact Ryan Lewis at rmlewis@allegannews.com or (269) 673-5534.
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