The Pulaski County Sheriff’s Department is asking for permission to spend almost another $42,000 beyond what was budgeted for this year. Almost $13,000 of that has to do with medical bills, according to Sheriff Jeff Richwine.
He told the county council last week that the Pulaski County Jail recently had an inmate who was undergoing cancer treatment, and the Sheriff’s Department had to cover a significant portion of the cost. On top of that, a number of last year’s bills from the department’s medical provider were unexpectedly delayed until this year, preventing them from being properly encumbered.
Meanwhile, the sheriff also asked for almost $29,000, to fund his deputies’ new retirement plan. He said council members agreed to provide the funding last year, but not in time to put it into the 2019 budget. “I think way early in the talks with that, I said that if you can’t come up with the money, that I would look in my budget and try to find that,” Richwine explained, “and then, you guys said that you would pay it all.”
Council members agreed to advertise Richwine’s additional appropriation requests for further consideration, along with a couple others to correct some oversights in this year’s budget. They also approved Richwine’s request to transfer $10,000, to pay for the Sheriff’s Department’s new employee wellness program.
