Budget chairman: Sheriff needs to find money in bottom line

JACKSON, Tenn.– Under Tennessee State law, county sheriffs can sue their county commissions if the department’s budget is passed without him present, if that budget decreases salaries for sheriff’s office employees, and if the budget does not pay for legally required services performed by the sheriff’s office.

Madison County Sheriff John Mehr is now suing for employee pay and equipment costs, after the commission increased their 2019-2020 budget.

“The current funding that we received, it will not be sufficient. We barely made it through this last year,” Sheriff Mehr said in a news conference Monday when he announced the lawsuit.

But how did the Madison County Commission get to the conclusion to get to the 4 percent increase, rather than the requested 17 percent?

“We’re trying to work within a certain amount of revenue increase that we have and keep the expenses below that so we don’t have to do anything on taxes,” Madison County Commission Budget Committee Chairman Doug Stephenson said.

County commissioners argue they are doing what the law requires by giving the sheriff more money than he had the year before.

“Our responsibility as a county commission is we give them ‘X’ number of dollars. It’s their jobs to appropriate the money,” Stephenson said.

That means if the sheriff wants to give raises, he needs to work within the budget he has.

“If the elected official wants to say, ‘We’re going to give raises of ‘X,’ then as long as that’s within their bottom line number, they can do that,” Stephenson said.

The sheriff’s office says they don’t comment on pending litigation.

Since the lawsuit was filed Monday, the county now has until Monday of next week to respond to the lawsuit.