1. Our county is growing constantly as a result of new residents moving in every month. This growth will lead to traffic/congestion problems and other issues, which will increase need for additional personnel/road patrols.
The Solution: For the immediate future we are working to utilitize present staff to provide coverage during the busiest times of day, when there are the most calls for service. The ever increasing population of the county is creating a long range need for addition personnel that we are working to address by adding trained/experienced part time officers who have come to the county and the Sheriff’s Office from other Law Enforcement Departments.
2. An increase in our county residents will eventually lead to an increase in attendance at all of the county schools. This will require more interaction with students and school staffs by the Sheriff’s Office School Resource Officer and possibly the entire Sheriff's Office staff.
The Solution: We have an excellent School Resource Officer who works with the High School staff and students daily as well as staff and students from the other county school. It is his job to be aware of problems before they become a crisis, and to work with the students to educate the to the health hazards and legal issues that they can run into through the use of drugs and alcohol.
3. The drug issue that the county deals with daily is not going away soon. We have a need for more aggressive action, for inter-agency cooperation between our Sheriff’s Office and various agencies such as KSP, DEA and possibly federal agencies to help us deal with our local and regional drug issues.
The Solution: The Sheriff’s Office has always worked well with KSP, other county Sheriff’s Offices/Police Departments, and federal agencies like US Marshal's Service on local and regional issues being involved in many drug tasks forces and criminal round up efforts. These enforcement efforts will continue.
4. There is a need for an improved interaction between the Sheriff’s Office and the citizens of the county to help improve crime prevention measures we now have and those we are trying to put into place in the future. A small office such as ours needs a trusting two way relationship with the community it served.
The Solution: Both I, as the Sheriff, and all of my deputies work hard to be accessible to the public. We have all had citizens call us at home and some have even had people knocking on our doors looking for help. We will work hard to continue this relationship and to improve it for better understanding between the citizens of Trimble County and the Staff
5. The need for additional staff for increased coverage and service. And, funding for those personnel increases without any additional funds from the taxes payers.
The Solution: To increase the Sheriff’s Office abilities to better service the community, the biggest need is for more manpower, and, to have that funding is the issue. We receive no more funding from the taxpayers now than we did eight years ago! We have grown through more efficient use of the fees we receive for the services such as the hiring of experienced personnel which saves us time and training costs. Our office works constantly to find and utilize alternate sources of funding such as court ordered forfeitures of assets and money, as well as applying for federal law enforcement grants.
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