County commission discusses juror’s pay, maintenance

JACKSON, Tenn. — New schools, juror’s pay and nonprofits could be affected because of past or present lawsuits involving the Madison County Sheriff’s Office.

“It hurts the morale,” said budget committee chair Doug Stephenson.

In Tuesday’s county commission meeting, circuit court asked for $30,000 for juror’s pay, and maintenance asked for a $10,000 transfer from their own funds for building repairs.

“Other departments are saying, ‘You’ve asked us to watch our budgets. You’ve asked us to work within our budgets.’ We’ve got a situation now with this lawsuit that it’s causing a lot of, in my opinion, a lot of morale issues,” Stephenson said.

At the same time, the county officially doled out $425,000 to pay part of a settlement between the sheriff’s office and a former employee.

The nonprofits committee discussed if the sheriff wins the current lawsuit against the county, they might not be able to delegate money to organizations.

“If that were to go through, to the tune of $2 million to $2.5 million, we could be down to an almost $0 fund balance,” said finance director Karen Bell.

And finally, the commission discussed the construction of three new schools, which look like they’ll cost more than originally expected.

“That’s why we really have to watch what we’re doing. We don’t really have a lot of wiggle room at this point to say, ‘Hey we’re going to do this and do that.’ We just have to watch what we’re doing,” Stephenson said.

The sheriff did not immediately respond for comment.

Also in the meeting, the county commission tabled two resolutions.

One was not consenting to refugees being resettled in Madison County, and the other was in support of President Donald Trump.

They brought about a dozen protesters to the meeting.

Both resolutions were tabled, and commissioners told WBBJ 7 Eyewitness News after the meeting, they took away from the important issues at hand.

Categories: Local News, News