Tuesday, January 11, 2000
Courts put pinch on sheriff
Unfunded mandate may depend on vote
BY JANE PRENDERGAST
The Cincinnati Enquirer
COVINGTON - A budget vote tonight could leave Kenton County's top law enforcement official scrambling for $400,000 he needs to keep Kentucky's chief Supreme Court justice off his back.
Members of the Kenton Fiscal Court are not expected to pass Sheriff Chuck Korzenborn's preferred budget, one that includes the $400,000 for more courthouse bailiffs. That would mean the sheriff would continue to be in violation of a court order that requires him to provide the security. He could be held in contempt of court.
Sheriff Korzenborn and his deputies say they are stuck between the judge's unfunded mandate and the fiscal court's tight purse strings.
“We don't have the additional income to fund this,” Chief Deputy Ron Washington said. “Yet we've been ordered to do it. The sheriff's stuck in the middle.”
Other officials say the sheriff can control how he spends his money, just not how much he gets.
By law, the sheriff's department must give the fiscal court 25 percent of the fees it takes in from tax collection, vehicle inspections and other work — an estimated $500,000 this year. The court can give back some or all of that money. However, fiscal courts, at least in recent years, have come to rely on the 25 percent for other needs.
Giving that money to the sheriff's department would require significant cuts in other county services, said Deputy Judge-executive Scott Kimmich. For example, the county is trying to pay for $30 million in road improvements needed over the next four years.
The sheriff's second-choice budget version, for a little over $2 million, is likely to be approved tonight — and that's already about $500,000 bigger than any budget written by the two preceding sheriffs, Mr. Kimmich said.
“We recognize that the sheriff doesn't have the money to do everything he may want to do,” Mr. Kimmich said. “He has to prioritize.”
The sheriff's 25 percent this year would be more than enough to cover the extra people needed to fill Judge Patricia Summe's order of 19 full-time bailiffs. Chief Justice Joseph Lambert seconded her request, authorizing in June the hiring of 23 additional personnel. Now, the department has six full-time and 26 part-time bailiffs.
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