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http://thenewsdispatch.com/articles/2011/0...f4193943707.txt

Councilman wants explanation for sheriff's department requests

By Matt Fritz
Staff Writer
Published: Tuesday, May 3, 2011 5:09 PM CDT
LA PORTE — County Councilman Earl Cunningham wants the Sheriff’s Department to explain why it needs more money to resolve issues with the jail when some items could have been handled through the commissary fund last year.

During Monday’s County Commissioners meeting, Cunningham said about $24,000 of the money requested from the sheriff’s 2010 Jail Report could have been covered by the sheriff himself if commissary fund money wasn’t spent on several items he said were unrelated to public safety and crime prevention.

These included expenditures to the La Porte Jaycees, a donation to the YMCA Strong Kids Campaign, supplies to La Porte County Fair (a cost of $3,972 for promotional ads for the sheriff) and other items.

He said the last page of the jail report puts the county on notice for some potential civil ramifications for the listed deficiencies in the jail, noting staffing issues and repairs to the facility, and explaining that the problems could lead to lawsuits against the county.

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”My argument is, ‘Don’t come to me crying that you need to have money for us to fix the jail when you’re frivolously wasting money (from the commissary fund),’” he said in an interview after the meeting.

According to a previous story in The News-Dispatch, the sheriff used more than $26,000 from the Jail Commissary Fund to pay for promotional ads and other donations during the past three years. Cunningham thinks the amount is closer to $40,000 through all the time he’s been in office.

He said about half of the fixes requested in the report — a total of about $24,134 — could have been covered by the sheriff instead of used in promotion.

After the meeting, Commissioner Kenneth Layton said he had his own opinions about the commissary spending, but noted the State Board of Accounts reviewed it and found no fault with the sheriff.

”I don’t know where we can go from here,” he said.

While Sheriff Mike Mollenhauer gave no comment to Cunningham’s remarks, he pointed out that his department has spent $94,000 on digital camera equipment to increase the number of cameras recording in the jail from two to 125 (it has a total of 205), and another $6,000 to $8,000 on recording equipment for its breathalyser machine.

He said the council didn’t spend a dime on that, and it’s saved the county thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands in lawsuits and litigation issues.