As he begins his second term as Hamblen County Sheriff, Chad Mullins and Executive Assistant Michele Green presented the Hamblen County Finance Committee its requests for Fiscal Year 2027 at the committees meeting Monday evening.

The Hamblen County Sheriff’s Office has eight divisions: the Sheriff’s Office, Detention Center, Court Security, Narcotics, Sex Offender Registry, Civil Service, Workhouse and the School Resource Officers. Green said that there has been a lot of work that has gone into the HCSO’s FY27 budget.

Of the eight budgets, the HCSO is going into the process with minimal requests for increases.

“As a Sheriff’s Office, we’ve been very frugal this year and will do so going into the next year,” Green said. “We are Hamblen County employees, but we’re also Hamblen County taxpayers. We’ve stretched this budget as much as we can.”

“A lot of this is because of the grants that we’ve received since Sheriff Mullins has been in office,” Green said. “We’ve gotten grants that have covered some really big-ticket items; from gloves to uniforms and mattresses for inmates. We’ve done really well with these grants.”

This year, the HCSO has been awarded a $1.35 million grant for school resource officers. All 23 School Resource Officer positions were funded for the entire year. Eighteen officers were funded through grants and five were funded with $375,000 of county-only money.

SROS will begin to bill each month for their gasoline, oil changes and radio equipment costs. Green said that this will make it easier to be able to have on the quarterly reports to the state.

There is a line-item amount of $25,000 to pay Mid-South Radar and Motorola for communications equipment; and a $338 increase for maintenance and repairs.

All SRO vehicles, aside from K-9 Handler Paul Pressley’s truck, are new and it is hoped they will need no more than routine maintenance. This will require a line item of $5,000.

SROs do not just work at schools during the day. They also attend events in the evening hours and serve papers during the summer months when schools are not in session.

The county has also received an $8,000 non-matching THSO Safety Grant to allow for overtime pay for traffic enforcement.

Three HCSO vehicles have been fitted with computers, according to Green. The HCSO will also partner with the National Child Safety Council, where around $17,000 in grants have been secured for free educational materials and supplies for children.

These are distributed through the School Resource Officers, Court Security, Deputies and Detectives.

Green said that the budget information distributed to commissioners showed what the Sheriff’s Office started with this year, what the Office will ask for with notations on why increases are being asked for in certain areas.

There are also notations in areas in which decreases are reported.

Operational Costs

Court Security evaluation and testing have a decrease of $1,000.

“Part of this is that we’ve been able to secure psychological testing from a lady who can now do the testing for $200. Previously, these tests have cost $250 a pop,” Green said. “That may not sound like a big savings, but when you consider how many potential employees, we have that we are constantly testing, that’s a massive savings.”

Each deputy candidate has to undergo these tests before being employed. These tests amount to a decrease of $1,000.

There is no increase in uniform rates because the cost of maintenance on honor guard uniforms is being taken out of the Sheriff’s Office budget as opposed to court security. Plus, uniforms are constantly being reassigned for people in court security who have either gone on to patrol or who have left for other jobs.

Inservice rates have had a decrease of $2,000. CTAS offers a lot of post-certified trainings at no cost.

“We try to take advantage of those when we can,” Green said. “The issue with that is that we can’t always send people to these trainings even though they are free because we can’t always spare manpower. We do, however have an option to do Lexipol, a portal where our folks can get their POST-certified training and other training that we may need.

Sheriff’s Office

A line item regarding communications will have a $2,000 decrease due to comparisons to uses last year and this year, Greene said. There is also no change in private agency contracts.

The HCSO has broken away from the Cellebrite service, saving the county around $7,000 annually. The county is now using East Tennessee Regional Forensics Service, located at Carson-Newman University, which is also used by other area law enforcement agencies. ETRFS has updated equipment that is used in comparison with Cellebrite for the amount of postage only for a letter of support of the service.

A decrease was asked for Printing, stationery and forms due to the availability of these forms from the state at no cost, while other forms are available online.

Many of the CTAS classes that officers must take are either in Knoxville or Johnson City, saving travel costs and saving on expenses associated with hotel stays.

HCSO is asking for a $2,500 increase to equip a new detective who is also responsible the Sex Offender Registry.

Some of the increase will also go towards a new evidence room that is being relocated to the Justice Center.

An increase of $4,615 was suggested for required classes for officers. This is in the same line item as the Academy costs are based. Due to further increases in costs of specialty classes, Greene suggested this item be increased by $23,000.

Mullins said that he had an officer who specializes in auto theft, others who are fire investigators and child sex crimes.

“For those courses, we have to send these officers to where the classes are at for recertification, (whether it be annually or every two years),” Mullins said.

A $20,000 increase was recommended due to DARE Program costs, costs of medication of Hamblen County’s new bomb dog “Grimm” and other costs.

Sex Offender Registry

There is a line item decrease of $200 for maintenance agreements.

A $1,000 travel line-item increase was requested for a new officer in the sex offender registry category with required classes.

An in-service line item, for which there is a new administrator, was suggested for a $200 increase.

Detention Center

Green requested an increase in the maintenance agreement of the new Justice Center by $3,700.

Due to an increase in population, inmates medical and dental services were suggested for a $200,000 increase.

“We work weekly with the judges,” Mullins said. “We put (some prisoners) on an ankle monitor who have a huge medical problem to try to keep that payment down. There are a lot of sick people in jail. If we’re able to continue that, the additional $200K will still be there at the end of the year.”

Nursing calls, according to Mullins, have gone down 900 calls per month in the last year from the change in facilities.

There is no change in food costs for the detention center. It currently costs $450,000 a year to feed 400 inmates.

“That’s just $3 a day, per inmate,” Commissioner Thomas Doty said. “You’re feeding someone for $1,000 a year. You try to do this at you home, that’s not going to happen.”

Mullins said that the cost had come down to $1.07 per meal.

Green said that there would be a decrease of $2,000 in uniforms, due to turnover. Mullins has been able to operate without funding 26 employees in the detention center.

There is a $5,000 savings in food service equipment for the new center since some of the equipment had been purchased earlier and were put into storage until the facility was ready to open.

Another $5,000 decrease in law enforcement equipment was noted.

There were no changes in the Civil Service, Narcotics or Workhouse departments.