Can someone explain this?

"The millage is estimated to raise $1,090,676..."

 "Mason County Sheriff Kim Cole said the millage basically pays for the cost of five corrections deputies and a supervisor."

Divided evenly that is $166,000 per the 6 correctional employees.

Doesn't that seem a little excessive even to Sheriff Cole?

No wonder his employees love him.

Cole further stated,''There are a total of 17 full time corrections deputies along with four to six part-time deputies.''

Also,“We are very fortunate in Mason County to have the support of our taxpayers to help with these additional funds,” Sheriff Cole said. “Many of our neighboring counties do not have millages to support their jails, and they are understaffed, which is a dangerous position to be in.''

Don't it seem odd that surrounding counties can make do with less jail staff. Are the hombres in Mason County Jail so incorrigible that they require additional staffing? Wasn't it stated at the time  of the jail expansion that when the jail was upgraded it would require less guards because of video monitoring? Guess taxpayers at the time were sold a bad bill of goods.

One other thing, how much does it cost to house an inmate out of the county? 

If it costs $35 a day to jail an inmate in Mason County according to Cole, that works out to $12,775 per year. Times that by the average jail population of  65 and that comes out to $830,375 to house the entire jail population for a year.

''The total annual budget of the jail is $2.7 million.'' Huh??? Exactly what are the taxpayers getting for spending about an additional $2 million for jail to operate?

You could house the inmates out of county, pay $70 per day to house them and it would still cost a about $1million less than what it currently cost to operate the Mason County Jail.

And one more thing, for the road patrol millage that just passed, according to their union contract the salaries of the new road patrol officers will increase in 5 years about 1/3, from $35K to $50k. 

Will the future millage be adequate to cover this increase in the road patrol officers compensation? And it will come about the same time the patrol cars will need replacing.

http://www.masoncountypress.com/2018/08/06/millage-covers-about-40-...

https://masoncountysheriff.org/departments/jail-and-corrections/inf...

Funny how that Mason County Press article just happened to come out the day before the election so that there wasn't an adequate amount of time to issue an rebuttal. 

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The sheriff's office was never good at math when it comes to 'splaining these millage proposals and why they are necessary, recall this recent article:  road-patrol-millage-proposal-propaganda-corrected.

Shinblind, could you do me a favor and post some of the stats of nearby counties with similar populations to Mason County, then compare and contrast jail and other related expenditures and revenues?  I would like to see whether we are being that inefficient as you suggest. 

Overview:

 

Manistee  County                                          Mason County 

Population 

                   24,733                                       28,705

Inmate census [average/day]

                   49                                                   65

Annual Jail Expenses

                   $1,496,000                                      $2,700,000

Correction Officers

                        9                                                17  + 4 to 6 part time officers

Expense per inmate per day

                        $83.00                                          $114.00

In other words Mason County spends $1,200,000 more annually on our jail so an additional 8 officers can tend the needs of an additional 16 inmates than Manistee County spends.

https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/product...

http://www.manisteecounty.com/index.php?option=com_contact&view...

http://www.manisteecountymi.gov/index.php?option=com_content&vi...

pages 34-35 Manistee County Budget.    

Thanks for that information, shinblind.  It's a shame that almost all citizens (and most county officials) are unaware of the waste such statistics point at in the sheriff's department and how we all just democratically okayed $1.6 million for jail and road patrol excess to a sheriff that refuses to follow FOIA law.

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