Ellerbe approves budget without renewing contract with Sheriff’s Office

ELLERBE — The Town of Ellerbe on Monday approved their 2021-2022 budget without the roughly $180,000 allocated to renew the town’s contract with the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office which ensured that a deputy would be in the town 24 hours a day — a contract that has been renewed each time its come up since the town dissolved its police force in 1999.

The current contract, signed on June 4, 2018, does not expire until June 30. Town officials are still in discussions with the county administration and the Sheriff’s Office (RCSO) to work out a way to maintain some level of law enforcement in the town, but so far the town has not been satisfied with the county’s offers. For each year of the current contract, the town has been billed $174,561.76.

The budget passed following a 4-1 vote, with Councilman John Sears voting against it, on the grounds that he had previously committed to voting against a budget that didn’t include funds to keep law enforcement in the town. Sears said in an interview that while he wanted to keep his word, his view of the town’s situation had since changed to be more in line with the rest of the board after looking more into it and hearing the offers from the county.

County Manager Bryan Land said Tuesday morning that he was not aware that the town had elected not to renew the contract for the new term, and declined to comment on specifics. Land did confirm that the county and Ellerbe are “still in the negotiating stage” on the contract. Board of Commissioners Chair Jeff Smart declined to comment on the discussions Tuesday since they are ongoing.

Ellerbe has made about $400,000 in cuts (including the recent cutting out of the RCSO contract) to their budget from their 2019 position as a result of the county’s change to an ad valorem sales tax distribution method in April 2020, and the Town Council sees this contract as too big a burden to bear, especially when other areas of the county are covered by the RCSO as part of the regular duties. Sheriff James Clemmons and Land have each made assurances, both in private and in past comments to the Daily Journal, that law enforcement coverage will not suffer if the town decides not to continue the contract.

The county has not responded to a request for response time and dispatch data for the northern part of the county as of press time Tuesday.

Residents have resisted each time the idea of ending the contract has come up over the last couple of years, which began prior to the county’s change to the sales tax distribution method, citing concerns over safety and longer response times. Ellerbe resident Jimmy Wagers spoke at the public hearing on the budget Monday in opposition to the town ending the contract. While he was the only one who spoke on this specific issue, a handful of other residents shared his sentiment.

Wagers explained that his home had been broken into during Christmas time about three years ago, and that the deputies who responded were “professional” and “courteous” in dealing with the situation, which was resolved about six to eight months later.

“They do a good job for Ellerbe,” Wagers argued to the council, adding that he can always stop and talk to the deputy when he sees them in town. “I understand that there are budget restraints and constrictions … but there has to be some way that this Town Council — because you ran on the premise that you’re going to do what’s best for the citizens of Ellerbe, and I think in your heart you want that — we need our sheriff’s department or something.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, we need it,” he continued. Wagers also suggested cutting elsewhere rather than “defunding” the RCSO.

Sears, who at the previous budget work session took a hard line on having some kind of funding for law enforcement to be kept in the town and had committed to voting against any budget that didn’t, explained to Wagers that the town is working towards a resolution with the county.

“Bryan Land, I don’t think, has offered us something that we can afford as of yet,” Sears said, encouraging the handful of residents in attendance to contact their county commissioners. “We can adopt this budget and add to it at any time, but the money that the county took from us in our tax situation — there’s just no way, Jimmy. I mean we’ve cut to the bone.”

Mayor Fred Cloninger explained that he had asked Land if the town could pay for a contract to have a deputy in the town for six, eight, nine or 10 hours. According to Cloninger, Land called back and offered to have a deputy in the town for six hours a day for $90,000 per year.

“I said, ‘Well Brian I’m not the smartest man in the world, but if I get 24 hours for $180,000, I ought to get 12 [hours] for $90,000, and he stumbled around and [Land said] ‘Well, you’ve got to figure this…,’” Cloninger said at the meeting.

“I want all the citizens to know, this board is agonizing just as much as the citizens are,” he continued. “As John [Sears] said, just because we’re adopting the budget does not mean we’re not continually working towards an answer down the road.”

In an interview after the meeting, Cloninger explained in response to a question about Wagers’s comments, that cutting the contract with the Sheriff’s Office “has nothing to do with the job that they do.”