Discussions over funding between the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office and the Board of County Commissioners appear to have reached a boiling point.
During a Monday budget meeting, a frustrated Sheriff Rob Snaza went off on Commissioner Lindsey Pollock in a 20-minute response to her questions surrounding a $562,823 increase for his office’s budget. Snaza claims the county commissioner has been working against him and his request to hire deputies and implement body and vehicle cameras.
“When I tell you I want two deputies, you’d think I was going way out of my line asking for this. This is absolutely ridiculous. I should be asking for six. I should be asking for eight because we’re not even at the staffing levels we need to be at now,” Snaza told commissioners. “I think this is absolutely ridiculous that we’re having to beg for money and, quite frankly, I’m very disappointed that we’re even having this conversation.”
Commissioners and county staff are currently in the process of drafting the county’s 2022 budget and are reviewing requests for additional funding from departments. While Commissioner Sean Swope seems ready to allocate the funds, Pollock has requested more detail from the sheriff’s office on how those funds will be used and what alternatives they can make.
Within the sheriff’s request for $562,823, $432,494 would be allocated to hire two new patrol deputies, $14,000 would be used to install vehicle cameras, $47,388 would pay for the program for body and vehicle cameras and $68,941 would be used to hire a tech staffer to manage those records.
Among department requests, the sheriff’s is the largest this cycle. That’s mostly due to the hefty cost to outfit, train and pay officers.
Lewis County Public Health and Social Services this cycle, for example, requested roughly $351,853 for four public health positions, according to Budget Manager Becky Butler. The county’s information technology department has requested $162,716 for software updates next year.
Snaza said his department’s request is justified due to new police reform laws that require more transparency from officers and because field operations staffing in the sheriff’s office hasn’t rebounded from a high of 48 positions that were filled back in 1996.
Since then, the number of staff has gone down and is now at about 37, though two potential hires this year are in the works. According to the department’s application to county commissioners and the administration, a 7% increase in call volumes and caseloads and a 9% increase in the county population over the last decade is also justification.
Snaza pointed to the five Washington State Patrol troopers serving on detachments in Chehalis and Morton who were recently fired due to Gov. Jay Inslee’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
Though Snaza says his office is stretched now, staffing woes have been persistent for the department for almost three decades.
“The thing is that, on an average day, you may have five deputies. The best day you’re going to have is six. That’s cause no one’s on vacation and no one’s sick. That’s when we’re full,” Snaza said.
Snaza said “things were going to change,” and that he was “tired” of how his department was being treated behind their backs. He said Pollock has “sidetracked us, thrown us off when it comes to (American Rescue Plan Act) funds” and made them “jump through every single hoop you have asked us to.”
“The days of me sacrificing the men and women of the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office simply to be in the black are done,” he said, mentioning that people should challenge him in next year’s election if they think they can do a better job than him.
After 20 minutes of airing his grievances, Snaza left the meeting room. Snaza did not return a Wednesday phone call requesting more information about budget discussions.
Speaking with The Chronicle on Thursday, Pollock said she’s been very fair with the sheriff’s office, noting that she wants to “see consistency in the budget process.” She said she’s just looking for more information from the department on what measurable results could come from funding their positions.
“I do think there are positive benefits that Lewis County residents want to see with increased investments in the sheriff’s office, and I think it can be done,” she said, adding the sheriff’s office needs to cooperate with the process and show measurable results like other departments have.
Pollock says she’d like to see Snaza consider factoring in revenue the county gets from Vader and Pe Ell law enforcement contracts to help offset the cost of the new salaries. She’d also like to hear more from them about what east county patrols would look like.
“Tell us exactly what you want to do out there,” she said.
County investments into law enforcement staffing shouldn’t be taken lightly, Pollock said, since they want to make sure the funding is there and stable.
Another disagreement between Pollock and Snaza was around funding the support tech position to manage records requests and data attributed with body and vehicle cameras. Pollock said she believes that work is best done by a staffer outside the sheriff’s office in order to give them a “layer of protection.”
“It provides a much cleaner, clearer picture to the outside as far as transparency,” Pollock said, noting that she’s not in any way insinuating his office would do anything shady. “It's just one of those things you do in the business. You make sure you have a separate set of eyes.”
Snaza took offense to that.
Pollock said she welcomes more discussion with Snaza about increases to the budget and wants to help hash this matter out.
Swope, who was sympathetic to Snaza’s plight, urged Pollock to reconsider passing the sheriff’s office’s request, saying that “of course this is going to hit our budget harder than some of the other positions, but it’s worth it and we can make it work.”
He argued that since the office operates in the black, and often returns funds back to the county after its budgetary year, the increase would impact the county only about $250,000.
Though the citizen’s budget committee voiced support for negotiating a better price on equipment, both Pollock and Swope are adamantly opposed to that recommendation.
“After being with the sheriff’s department on Friday, I would never want to give them second-grade equipment, because oftentimes they only have one chance to get it right and you don’t want your equipment to fail in that moment,” Swope said.
But the sheriff’s office may not need Pollock’s vote.
Commissioner Lee Grose, the new District 3 representative who took his oath of office Wednesday and began serving just a couple days after the discussion took place, said he understood Snaza’s frustration.
More discussion is expected from commissioners during Monday’s meeting. Grose declined to say which way he was leaning on the subject, but said he was open to passing the office’s increase request if it wasn’t too out of line.
Audio from the meeting was provided to The Chronicle by KELA.
