Pulaski County officials are looking to keep a better handle on employee cell phones. County Council Vice-President Mike Tiede raised the issue during the council’s joint session with the county commissioners Monday, after the county was billed for a new iPhone. “Did you hear about the cell phone?” he asked. “Somebody goes out and just orders one, it costs $600 or $450, $700. And it’s like they just go and haphazardly buy what they want, you know?”
Sheriff Jeff Richwine explained that the purchase was made by his department. He said it was supposed to be paid for out of his department’s Commissary Fund, not the county’s General Fund. “I feel like, when I was sitting there, that this was something I was trying to slip by people. I would never do that to you,” he said. “I look at this as we’re a team here, trying to get a job done. So why when that phone was bought, I’ll have to check and see why it didn’t come out of the Commissary Fund. I’m assuming that what I wanted done there, just didn’t get to the right people.”
The sheriff said the staff member who’s getting the new iPhone needs it, in order to use all the department’s mobile software. “There is Pocket Cop. We can access our CAD, our RMS system. All that stuff is on our phones. It just goes on and on and on. There’s stuff in the dispatch center that are on our phones. His 10-gigabyte phone that he had, he was having to delete stuff to put stuff on and then put that on, and just kept going back and forth with them.” Richwine agreed to pay for the phone out of his Commissary Fund, as he originally planned, if the bill could be changed.
But county officials also had a few other concerns, when it comes to phone usage. Tiede noted that some employees are using quite a bit of data. “Me and my kids, we get 10 gigabytes,” he said. “Well here’s somebody that used 13. Here’s somebody that used 10. Then other people use hardly any. I mean, I don’t know if people are using their WiFi at home, making hot-spots or what, but that just seems like a lot to me.”
There was also some confusion about who actually has each of the phones. Former county commissioners Larry Brady and Terry Young are still listed as having county-issued cell phones, although it’s believed they turned them in when they left office.
At the same time, the commissioners and council members agreed that any changes like phone upgrades need to be brought before the commissioners and the county’s IT director.
