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Carter County Sheriff may sue county over budget

ELIZABETHTON — Today’s meeting of the Carter County Commission may be the last chance for the legislative body and Sheriff Chris Mathes to reach a compromise before Mathes files a writ of mandamus lawsuit.

A writ of mandamus is a judicial remedy in which a judge orders a government entity to perform its legal duty. In this case, Mathes believes the County Commission has failed to adequately fund his office so that he can perform all the duties he is legally required to perform.

Although he has already retained the legal services of Johnson City attorney Richard Pectol, Mathes hopes to avoid going to court by working out a compromise with the County Commission. He already lost the first round of the compromise when the Budget Committee rejected it by a 5-3 vote on Thursday.

Committee member Charlie Bayless, William Armstrong and Harry Sisk voted for the compromise. Tom Bowers, Nancy Brown, Jack Buckles, Terry Montgomery and Lynn Tipton voted against it.
While he was only able to muster three votes in the committee, Mathes hopes he can obtain the needed 13 votes on the commission. The compromise is to provide an additional $95,000 to the sheriff’s department to fund step raises for the deputies. The step raises have been in place for many years, but Mathes said the commission has not provided the funding necessary to implement the annual raises.

“Those step raises are something that has been promised to them for years,” Mathes said.
In addition to the step raises, the funding would also offset cost for training, uniforms and transportation.

In addition to the $95,000, Mathes hopes the commission will consider developing a fiveyear plan to improve the funding for the sheriff’s department.

Mathes said employee pay is a critical issue. Starting pay for jailers is now $20,001 and starting pay for road deputies is $22,789. He said that is not enough pay to keep the officers after they have been trained.

He said he loses his officers to all the surrounding areas, including the police departments of Elizabethton, Johnson City, Kingsport and surrounding sheriff’s departments. Not only that, some deputies have quit to obtain more pay in such jobs as managing a pizza restaurant, a rental business and Crossroads probation.

In addition to the need to improve pay, Mathes said there is also a need to increase the number of deputies. He said a recent study by the University of Tennessee’s County Technical Advisory Service has determined that Carter County needs 108 deputies. The department currently has 82 slots, not counting two part time litter patrol positions.

The CTAS figure is much more modest that the gold-plate model of the FBI. Mathes said the FBI standard would require the county should have 199 deputies.

“Of course there is no way I would ask for that many,” Mathes said. But if I had a few more deputies, I could provide more officers on patrol in all areas of the county.”

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