Budget spotlighted in sheriff's race
‘Irresponsible spending' alleged
By BETHANY RODGERS
Staff writer
Use of funds has emerged as a leading issue in the election race for Charles County sheriff, with the incumbent agency head highlighting his fiscal finesse, while a challenger charges the administration with "irresponsible spending."
Dave Williams, a candidate for election as sheriff this year, has pointed out what he says are multiple mishandlings of Charles County Sheriff's Office resources, including the assignment of officers to civilian positions, hiring of political supporters and purchases of a boat and bus.
"These funds could have better been utilized to the benefit of our citizens and assist the overall funding of the county budget," Williams said at a May 12 county budget hearing, where he spent about three minutes at the podium outlining his concerns.
In contrast, Sheriff Rex W. Coffey in his bid for re-election has touted his administration's ability to do more with less. Since Coffey (D) took office in December 2006, the sheriff's office's adopted budget has been reduced by nearly $3.6 million. Despite the recession and resulting belt tightening, state statistics showed reports of serious crime in Charles County fell last year to 4,433 incidents, the lowest total since 1999.
"We've done it for less, and I actually feel like we've done it better," Coffey said in a recent interview.
But Williams, a retired sheriff's office captain running against Coffey in the Democratic primary, has said the recent decline simply follows a statewide crime trend, conjecturing that the local statistics could have fallen even further with proper management of county police funds.
Williams has aired his criticisms in several public forums since he announced his candidacy last year, including the May 12 budget hearing.
At the gathering, Williams blasted Coffey for hiring political supporters, calling the appointments payback. The sheriff created two positions for his backers: one for Maj. Joseph "Buddy" Gibson, who makes about $113,000 per year, and another for Capt. Michael Rackey, who takes home more than $100,000 annually, Williams said. Coffey also hired his campaign manager, Jack Hurd, as the director of the administrative services division at a yearly salary of about $107,000.
"Through the appointment of political supporters, we the taxpayers have paid over a half a million dollars per year in salary and benefits," Williams said at the hearing.
Coffey said the accusation that hiring Gibson, Rackey and Hurd cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands is a "flat-out lie" and added that he has created no new positions. Coffey said he replaced a captain with a major, but the action resulted in a command staff the same size as that of the previous administration.
County budget records showed that former Sheriff Frederick E. Davis' administration had one major and nine captains in sworn positions. One of the captains, who ran the detention center, retired around the time Coffey took office, and Gibson took the spot, which became an assistant sheriff post at the rank of major.
Records showed the now-retired captain made just more than $100,000 per year working in corrections. Gibson's starting annual salary was $105,212, so the rank change initially resulted in an additional cost of about $5,000, Coffey reported.
Coffey then converted the director of the detention center post into a non-sworn position and promoted Pamela Dottellis from within the ranks of the correctional officers to fill the role, Gibson said.
A May 14 memorandum, addressed to Coffey from Betsy Leonhard, deputy director of human resources at the sheriff's office, stated that another now-retired captain had Rackey's position before him. Hurd, appointed by Coffey in December 2006, holds a post mandated by county code and filled by Ross Pitrelli under Davis, the memo stated.
Coffey said there was nothing unusual in bringing supporters, people he could rely on, into his administration.
"How was I to purge the agency of the problems here if I didn't know who I could trust?" he said.
Williams also has criticized sheriff's office outlays, such as the purchase of a second boat when its first watercraft — which he claimed is nicknamed the "SS Never Used" — sees little activity. Apart from patrol and training, the boat has been used for seven calls for service since Coffey took office in 2006, Williams reported.
One reason for this is that the current craft, designed as a fishing boat and bought before Coffey's tenure, is a "money pit" that has broken down several times in the river and isn't useful as a law enforcement tool, the sheriff said.
In fact, Monday, police couldn't respond to a boat in distress call because the sheriff's office vessel wouldn't move in reverse. Fire and EMS workers handled the situation, according to authorities.
A new vessel could help patrol sensitive areas, such as around the Gov. Harry W. Nice Memorial Bridge and power plants, and partner with the state, which because of reduced resources is cutting back its enforcement on local waters, Coffey said.
A federal port security grant and money from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources covered nearly the entire cost of the boat, equipment and training, which totaled $331,330, Coffey said. The sheriff's office contributed about $18,400.
The sheriff's office is using another grant to fully fund the purchase of a second boat worth about $400,000, and Coffey reported that Mirant Mid-Atlantic, the owner of the Morgantown power plant, is building a dock and boat lift for the agency at no charge.
"We need to be more aggressive on the waterways," Coffey said.
But the current boat is functional, especially for the amount the sheriff's office uses it, and the agency recently spent more than $6,000 to fix its engine, Williams said.
"If you've got a boat in the backyard, I don't see why you need a boat in the front yard," he said.
Another questionable expenditure was the purchase of a new bus and installation of LED lights on it, Williams claimed.
The sheriff's office used just less than $67,000 in funds from the Volunteers in Community Service program to cover the entire cost of the bus and lights, Coffey said. The VICS program helps fulfill sentencing requirements for people ordered by a court to complete community service and collects a fee from participants.
The county commissioners approved the bus purchase to help transport VICS participants, inmates and sheriff's office employees on their way to training, as well as help evacuate the local jail or other parts of the community in an emergency, Coffey reported.
Before the bus buy, the agency had no vehicles that were compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the VICS program relied on a 1992 Ford E-350, a van with a record of safety problems, to transport volunteers.
Although the bus has transported sheriff's office employees to training and funerals around the region, it hasn't been heavily used for the VICS program, Gibson reported. If participants don't require an ADA-compliant vehicle, the sheriff's office uses other vehicles in its fleet to minimize the number of miles put on the new bus, he said.
Williams said he sees this as a waste of resources.
"People I have spoken with said [the van] is not used for VICS transportation. I was told a couple weeks ago that it was used to transport the honor guard," Williams said.
Wasting manpower in addition to money is another problem of the Coffey administration, Williams claimed. He specifically mentioned two police officers who fill civilian positions in the sheriff's office, one repairing computers and the other working in the motor vehicle pool.
"What's the crime rate in the computer lab versus the crime rate in Waldorf? It's a waste of a trained police officer," Williams said.
Three sworn officers work in support staff positions in the sheriff's office, compared with four officers under the previous administration, Coffey said.
"Some people have such a talent in certain areas," Coffey said. "It would be a travesty not to use them."
For example, in the hands of Cpl. David Fromme, the sheriff's office motor pool is more cost effective and efficient than county government fleet management, Coffey said. The officer who works in information technology often acts as a go-between for the computer lab and sworn agency members and earns about $11,600 less than the salary a civilian would net in the same position, he said.
The smooth working relationships between the officers in support staff positions and police on the street boost morale for the agency, Coffey said.
Also at the May 12 budget hearing, Williams criticized the Coffey administration for a shortage of fiscal transparency. He brought up a sheriff's office decision to pay 13 officers about $7,000 in overtime to work security at a private, for-profit concert Sept. 20, 2008.
"Should the citizens pay for this or should the promoter who made all the money that day pay for it?" Williams asked at the budget hearing.
Coffey said the sheriff's office had hammered out a deal with the organizer, a company that offered to excavate and improve the sheriff's office firearms range in exchange for security at the Regency Furniture Stadium event. Because the work — which included grading the roadway to the range — was valued at about $14,000, the sheriff's office saved about $7,000 through the arrangement, Coffey said.
"The concert was in our county, so it was a win-win-win," Coffey said. "The county benefitted from that, and the sheriff's office saved money."
Although the event didn't make a profit, part of the proceeds had been intended as a donation to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a breast cancer research charity.
However, Williams condemned Coffey for a lack of openness in the arrangement.
The "under-the-table" agreement prevented other companies from bidding on a contract to improve the range and lacked transparency, Williams said. He added that he also has been unable to find annual audits of the sheriff's office books that by law should be published in county newspapers.
Coffey responded that the audits and publications are the responsibility of the commissioners, not the sheriff.
