Lee Pulaski, lpulaski@shawanoleader.com
Detectives and support staff with the Shawano County Sheriff’s Department are eager to move into their new facilities in the basement of the county courthouse.
They were not told, however, that the offices would come unfurnished.
As a result, the Public Safety Committee on Wednesday had to approve spending $7,500 from the department’s carryover fund — unspent money from the previous year’s budget — to pay for the furniture. The measure was approved by a 3-2 vote, with Supervisors Mike McClelland and Ken Capelle opposed.
Several sheriff’s administrators, including Sheriff Randy Wright, expressed concern that the $7,500 might not be enough. They said the would cost estimates within a few days.
Wright said two to three people share each desk at the Sheriff’s Department, so moving furniture from the existing detectives’ office to the basement is not feasible. Nor is using other furniture, because most of the county’s surplus was sold at auction earlier this year.
“This is a dilemma,” he said. “Maybe we can have somebody bring some 5-gallon pails and a card table for those guys.”
The detectives are moving from the Sheriff’s Department, across the street, to the space vacated by the Health Department last year when it moved to the courthouse’s first floor.
The basement renovations have already gone above the $42,500 originally budgeted — money set aside to address the county’s evidence storage shortage, with the Sheriff’s Department contributing $1,600 from its carryover fund.
The basement offices will include an area for storing and analyzing computer equipment seized in criminal investigations, which is why the County Board tapped the evidence storage money.
Wright requested that the money for the furniture come out of the county’s general fund, which would need approval by a two-thirds supermajority of the County Board.
“It just makes more sense” to use the carryover fund,” said Supervisor Bert Huntington. “I don’t want your 1 percent (carryover) wiped out, but this is going to be easiest. If we take it out of the 1 percent, we don’t have to take it to the County Board.”
Capelle said he was unwilling to support spending $7,500 from the carryover fund because it was unclear how much was needed to furnish the new offices.