Garland County Sheriff Mike McCormick's proposal to narrow the responsibilities for two division captains by adding a leadership position to the sheriff's department's organizational matrix met with resistance during Tuesday night's Human Resources Committee meeting.
A job description that justices of the peace said could blur the chain of command and duplicate duties led to the tabling of McCormick's request to create a services captain. District 9 JP Matt McKee's motion to table was seconded by District 7 JP John Faulkner. All but JP Mary Bournival, District 4, were in agreement. She voted against the motion out of her desire to discuss the matter further.
The HR Committee hears requests for new positions and salary adjustments and makes recommendations for the Finance Committee and full quorum court to consider.
"Before I can support this particular position being created, it would need some reworking as far as the responsibilities are concerned," McKee told McCormick.
McCormick's outline for the job puts the department's special operations and programs under the charge of the services captain, allowing the criminal investigation and patrol division captains to concentrate on duties specific to their job titles.
"The duties of the CID and patrol captain are so diluted with other responsibilities," McCormick told the committee. "I feel like we need to provide those two captains with more opportunities to focus on their basic, fundamental duties."
He told the committee that the CID captain's responsibility for the tactical response team and mounted patrol has made the division less agile and unable to process cases in a timely manner, noting that the former has been deployed four times since he took office at the first of the year.
He explained that the CID captain's attention is divided by the high-risk situations the response team is charged with diffusing and the backlog of cases languishing in the CID files.
"There were so many cases they were receiving, and all they were able to do, unless it was a very serious offense, was shuffle paperwork," he told the committee. "There's no telling how many times I've heard that people's cases were not followed up on, typically a theft or burglary."
Thomas Anderson, District 2 JP and committee chairman, told McCormick some of the job functions outlined in his proposal overlapped with responsibilities already assigned to the patrol captain, specifically oversight of the reserve program that uses part-time, volunteer deputies to increase the department's patrol presence.
Anderson said reserve deputies are ultimately supervised by the patrol captain or his subordinates when they're on patrol. Putting them underneath a services captain adds an unnecessary layer of supervision, Anderson said.
"Most of the stuff you've mentioned already would fall under the patrol captain," Anderson said. "When they're out in the field doing things, they're going to fall under the patrol captain's supervision. It kind of looks like a duplication of services to me."
McCormick cited the practicality of putting the reserve program under a services captain, as reserves can fill roles spanning the spectrum of department functions.
Several JPs balked at putting the new position in charge of training for the patrol and detention divisions, saying it has the potential to create conflict between the department's chief deputy, which the HR Committee unanimously voted to retitle chief deputy of enforcement, and the chief deputy of corrections that oversees the detention center.
Ray Owen Jr., District 6 JP, told McCormick having a services captain responsible for training personnel not directly under the purview of his immediate superior could sow dissension.
"You might want to look at those crossover areas where you may have a person who's reporting to one chief deputy yet trying to do things for another," he said. "I can see some room for conflict there. You're going to have different personalities at different times in those two positions.
"It would be very awkward for somebody working for one and getting dressed down by the other because they weren't doing things the way they wanted them done."
McCormick said many training areas, such as firearms training, are applicable to both divisions.
The committee also expressed concern that the combined training would merge the parallel paths of advancement recommended by detention center project consultant John Milosovich into a single track leading deputies out of the detention center and into patrol.
The organizational structure for the new detention center set to open later this year encourages deputies to rise through the detention center ranks instead of seeing it as a portal to the patrol division. McCormick and several JPs said the department has taken pains to undo the perception that detention duty lacks the prestige of patrol.
"We've worked diligently to establish two separate rungs, career paths for the detention center and patrol," Bournival told McCormick. "They were designed so that the detention center wasn't the pit you had to work out of to get into law enforcement. It's actually designed to be a complete career path.
"They've been working very diligently to make that a reality. No we're going to throw all the training under one person again."
The committee unanimously approved McCormick's request to create a captain of operations to oversee detention center functions Chief Deputy of Corrections Mark Chamberlain described as "nonsecurity." He said the new position's duties would only overlap with those of security director Capt. Ronnie Branstetter when one is away for an extended period.
Chamberlain said the operations captain's responsibilities would include assigning inmates to appropriate housing areas, transporting inmates, the alternative sentencing unit, oversight of kitchen and laundry duties and serving as the point of contact for contract service vendors.
"In watching what Capt. Branstetter does on a daily basis, I think it would be a disservice not to split up some of his duties and responsibilities," Chamberlain told the committee. "He can focus 100 percent on security and security-related issues. The operations captain can fill in the gaps on all those other things."
Chamberlain said the new position will improve the procedure for moving inmates between jurisdictions, describing the current practice as the "Achilles heel" of the department.
"We have far too many transports, and they're not well orchestrated," he told the committee. "As the old saying goes, 'If it's not somebody's job, it's nobody's job.' Right now, it's nobody's job. We may send a deputy out five days a week on transport instead of coordinating five stops to be done in one day.
"It may sound simple, but you have to have one person who knows how to do that and how to coordinate that."
The county's human resources office didn't provide the salary ranges that correspond to the captains positions' respective ratings under the county's Job Evaluation and Salary Administration Program (JESAP).
Local on 01/29/2015