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Thursday evening Hamblen County Sheriff Chad Mullins presented his portion of the 2023-2024 Fiscal year budget at the commission’s finance committee meeting.

Mullins presented the committee with grants the department has received which will offset several increases in the budget.

“Since September 1 we have applied and received two grants totaling $476,082,” he said. “Plus we have received a $1,500 Elks Scholarship for academy costs for one cadet and we just were awarded a $500 canine grant.”

He explained to the committee how courtroom security is operated in the county.

“For courtroom security, there will be no extra employees,” Mullins said. “We have nine full time employees for court security. They handle all security for the Hamblen County Courthouse and the justice center. They do all mental health court transports as well.

“We have 11 part time security officers that cover the justice center as well as the courthouse.”

“It is a rank system of court security. There is a lieutenant who is over the security officers and he is also a general department instructor and handles all the training.”

He explained the courtroom security has an increase of $8,604 which is due to the uptick in cost of insurance.

Mullins discussed the department’s $66,808 decrease in its overall budget compared to the previous budget.

“We have 37 post certified officers and five civilians on staff,” he said. “Salaries in deputies have decreased by 28,830. We have a total of 18 deputies including the processing server and 2 school resource officers.

“There is a decrease in captain’s pay due to my previous position and the seniority there. The lieutenant’s and sergeant’s salary also saw a decrease. “

Mullins explained how the new justice center will be run and how many new staff will be needed.

“As of today there are 311 inmates in the jail,” he said. “Out of the 311, 76 are females and we are currently housing 60 state inmates.”

“Tennessee Correction Institute did an analysis of the new jail and determined that 128 total employees are needed to run the jail. After discussion with the police chief and jail administration we believe we could operate the jail with the 311 inmates at 97. That would mean we need 41 new staff members to operate the jail.”

He furthered his explanation by breaking down positions and the line of command.

“This is the way I have strategized how to streamline and transition into the new facility and created a new plan that is cost effective,” Mullins said.

“I am asking to add an additional captain position to the jail which will be an operations captain which will match the administrative captain.”

The administrative captains and the new operations captain will report to Chief Deputy Bob Elis and then to Mullins.

“The line of command will follow: administrative captain, lieutenant, sergeant and corporal. On the operation side there will be an operations captain, lieutenant, sergeant and the shift personnel.

“On each shift there will be sergeant, corporal and everyone else will be standard correctional officers.”

With the inclusion of additional staff for the new justice center, the jail’s budget is a total of $4.9 million.

Hamblen County Mayor Bill Brittain explained how the county will budget the new staff.

“In the budget in coordination with the sheriff’s department we budgeted for jail staff a little differently,” he said. “We budgeted the current staff for a full year of course. For the 41 new positions we budgeted 21 positions for 6 months.”

“From the last report from Blaine Construction the building will be turned over to us in May 2024 and it will take three months to get everything switched over so the sheriff’s department wants to do and what the TCI is recommending is we hire some of the staff and get them trained and working in the current facility.”

“We then plan to budget 20 for three months for April, May and June.”

Brittain explained how much it will cost the county to hire the staff for a full year.

“For a full year to staff the 41 positions is $2.5 million and the difference between what is currently in the budget vs. what we will need for next year is $1.5 million.”

Mullins explained how part of the reason for hiring staff for a half and quarter of the year is due disinterest in the position.

“We are struggling to find staff as it is, so it would be hard to hire them for a full year,” he said. “I am hoping that with the new jail being safer it will encourage more people to join staff.”

Mullins explained further how beneficial the new facility will be for the county.

“Now we will be able to segregate inmates based on charges,” he said. “Felons should not be housed with misdemeanors. With the new facility one floor will be for felons, one for misdemeanors and the third for female inmates.”

“With the pods it will be so much safer for our correctional officers and inmates,” he said. “They are tearing parts off of the building and using them as weapons.”

“I look forward to the new facility because now when we open a pod it won’t be 30 to 40 inmates,” he said. “It will be a whole lot safer for our correctional officers.”

Mullins went around the room and showed the committee confiscated weapons that were used by tearing parts of the current building off.

Commissioner Edna Greene asked if the new classification system was in place and if that was helping lower the number of assaults in the jail.

“The new classification system is in place but this is part of the building,” Mullins said. “We do shakedowns more often than you think, but we can go in tomorrow and find something just like that.”

Commissioner Joe Huntsman asked if at the new facility would there be similar issues.

“They will be in steel cells and they won’t be able to pull that apart.”

Mullins explained how there was an attempted jail escape and how a correctional officer was injured.

“Less than two months ago a new employee was going into an open felon pod area to do his hourly walk through and as he came out they grabbed him and set him inside and two inmates ran out,” he said. ”He was locked inside for 17 minutes with 27 convicted felons surrounding him.”

“Since then he has quit.”

For more coverage of the Hamblen County Sheriff’s department’s budget, refer to future editions of the Citizen Tribune.