During a budget presentation last week to the board of commissioners, Chief Deputy Larry Lowe of the Surry County Sheriff’s Office made a request to increase the county’s budget for autopsies related to overdoes death investigations.
“Surry County has taken a stance on these overdose deaths to try to investigate them as hard as we can, as deep as we can, without (autopsies) we won’t be able to do that,” he explained.
“We have an issue with overdoes death investigations that has come up. We have an overdose detective as we’re working him really hard and its been successful. However, in our region the state medical examiners office has changed the rules on autopsy.” Those rules mean for the state to pay for an autopsy, the person’s death must meet certain strict criteria, and many overdose deaths will no longer meet those guidelines.
Lowe said the local medical examiner’s hands are tied. “Unless certain conditions are met and we are running into if we want to persue prosecution for an overdose death that we have to have the autopsy.”
The state has said that the local district attorney can make a request for an autopsy if the medical examiner’s conditions are not met, “But we have to pay for that ourselves.”
He said an autopsy costs $1,800 and the sheriff can no longer request when one is needed. “The county is going to have to pay for the death investigation when there is not a clear-cut determination that one substance or another was the cause,” he said. He said backlogs at the state level and overwhelmed medical examiners led to the change.
The requested amount was $88,000 for the county to pay for these autopsies as needed. Vice Chair Mark Marion pointed out that they are critical in order to prove cause of death and advance any charges against the person who provided the drugs that led to the overdose which is the goal.
Lowe said, “I wish we didn’t have to use it (this funding) at all. What I’d really like is for the state to fix this issue and go back to how it was that a sheriff could request an autopsy as needed.”
Staffing
For the Surry County Sheriff’s Office, the largest percentage of their budget, somewhere in the neighborhood of 68-70%, Lowe said, goes to salaries. He said the patrol division is short of three deputies, but no requests were made to add additional staff.
The board was given a positive update from the detention center where the new corrections officers recently approved have already been hired. There are no current vacancies at the jail, but the sheriff is requesting to add another five corrections officers.
A former request for two administrative staff members for the front desk at the detention center was not resubmitted with this proposal. Lowe said they would find a way to make it work without adding those positions.
The new jail houses many more inmates and more beds mean more mouths to feed. The jail’s food budget has increased to reflect that they are serving nearly double the meals when compared to this time last year and the number of meals served is not likely to go down.
Another item needing attention is medical care available in the jail. Monday evening the board of commissioners was scheduled to hear presentations on the medical contract for detention center inmates. County Manager Chirs Knopf told the board they had a placeholder amount in the budget of $1.3 million but he anticipates the contract will be lower than that estimated amount. “I think it could be as much as half that projection,” he said.
Vehicles needed
The county is also hoping to create savings by exiting the vehicle leasing program with Enterprise. A final determination on buying out some of the old lease vehicles is part of the agenda for Monday’s meeting of the Surry County Board of Commissioners.
Lowe said sheriff’s office is in need of new pursuit rated cruisers and again this year are finding it hard to get those vehicles in a timely manner. One reason for this, he said, was that Dodge was no longer making the police pursuit rated Chargers. The company announced in 2022 that it would end production of gas powered Chargers by the end of 2023. That may seem an odd decision as the Charger has become one of the most prevalent cruiser models since Ford discontinued the use of the ubiquitous Crown Victoria for police use in 2012.
Given the pushback by American consumers on electric vehicles, this is a decision Dodge may revisit according to Dodge CEO Tim Kuniskis, who told reporters in March a new pursuit rated Charger is “definitely on our radar.” No word on whether that would be a gas powered vehicle or not.
Options available, Lowe said, are the Ford Explorer or the Dodge Durango — both of which have the muscle to be pursuit rated. The Dodge is estimated to be near $40,000 while the Ford would be closer to $43,000. He said other departments are having the same issues and the North Carolina Highway Patrol just made a large purchase of, essentially, whatever it could get its hands on.
The sheriff’s office had been enjoying a long run of Chargers and Lowe said many of the internal components of the cruisers were designed specifically for that model which allowed for the recycling of parts as one cruiser finished its lease term. Dashboard equipment or front/rear seat dividers could be moved from one unit to the next but now will need new hardware meaning another unexpected cost for the department.
Commissioner Eddie Harris asked if all cruisers were the same and if School Resource Officers needed pursuit rated cars. Lowe said while a pursuit from a school may not be needed, those deputies on the way home may come across a situation or be called to aid another member of law enforcement. In those instances, a sworn officer is a sworn officer regardless of SRO designation and they need the same ability to respond in a timely fashion.
Litter collection
Chairman Van Tucker was excited to hear that with the new misdemeanor confinement program that an inmate litter collection program long in the pipeline may be on its way. It was approved but set on the back burner for many reasons including the pandemic. Knopf said there would be startup costs for starting a litter collection program like a trailer to haul equipment on that may total $150,000.
Harris encouraged his colleagues to find a way to pay for some of these startup costs that would not be tied directly to property taxes. Everyone will benefit from an inmate little collection program but to only pass the costs on via property taxes is not fair as many county residents do not pay property tax.
“It sends a good message that we are serious about litter,” Tucker said adding that it also illustrates that crime has consequences.
More than the optics, having the litter collection program would increase the per day amount the state would provide for misdemeanors confinement prisoners from $40 to $60 each which could bring in $400,000 of annual revenue.
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