Council 6-23-2026 [72:13-77:14]

when we had the level six debacle that went along, I always wanted to make sure that we got a VOC sentence even though they were going to serve it off around here, there was going to be an odor pattern here, at least the county general fund will get reimbursed at $37.50 a day. And so, that's the best thing that we can do on that. And I mean, I think once I'm when I was talking to Sheriff Brown, there was like a half million dollars that was collected from that on top of whatever amount they were getting on that. So, it's a thing that works. It's all think, it's his big picture approach to work. How can I release the burden to the taxpayer, the community, how can I take the burden off of the county government, and, you know, we try to do that. So, there's all kinds of thoughts that go into our decision. Instead of just coming in and being able to chime a shop, I'm knocking everything over. Any questions for Samuel Network? Okay, I have none. And then, this was the chance I was going to brag on myself. I told you guys about this last go around. This was an award I got from the United States Attorney General. I attached press release. We hadn't quite gotten the award. I believe the last meeting that was here, but I want to pick that up afterwards. And the press release that has been published for about a month now, explains the details of how that award come back. And that's the... Those are the crimes that take the most time in our office and are more victim-centered. And I'll tell you, we are lacking as far as experience prosecutors as far as it would be nice to have somebody that is all they focus on. And the intricacies of that particular set of laws and people that can deal with that type of victim mentality, even if you have a person in that position, the burnout rate is just amazing in that. If you can imagine the only cases you deal with are child molestines or rape and so on. It's really rough on you. And for some, we have a lot of that going on in the community. And I mean, how do you stop that? I mean, it's more of a mental health issue, I think, than it is being scared of going prison. I don't think that of ourselves. But this was a case that had handful of victims that we were able to flesh out. And Trooper White started off on that, and Sheriff's Department went out and assisted, and both departments worked really well. And we did a lot of search once on it. And ultimately, when we started going through it, we agreed, I was a little reluctant, but we agreed to hand it over to the feds. And then he wind up hitting a 50-year sentence on that and federal prison versus going to state the situation. Thank you. And it's got my name on it. But like I said, it's got Trooper White. It's got Sheriff Day and his crew. It's got my deputies on it. I did some of the heavy lifting in the office at first. And then once I got everything filed, we pushed it over to that section, because I really don't enjoy being around those cases. I'm much prefer to go after the drugs and murders and stuff like that. But so that's an update with that. The last thing I was giving you guys hand out wise was this is just some of the print offs that I have printed off today before coming into this meeting of current job applications, or current job openings for prosecutors office throughout the state. Now, back in 2019, when I first took office, the pay was atrocious. It was $39,500 that this county was paying for deputy prosecutors. In 2019, which to me was just repugnant us all get out. And I was able to work with the existing council and we got to pay up to 60,000. And back then, you know, $52,000 to $65,000 was kind of like the base point. People were in the 80s with some more remarkable trend. And now, $95,000 to $105,000 is the entry point for a deputy prosecutor. And we've got some people that are paying $130,000, $40,000, which is right up there with what my chief deputy makes. I had a position that I offered that we talked about last month to a gentleman told him I can only pay $80,000. He was all on board. And by the time he got home, he got another job offer for $99,000. And he wind up taking that. And why he was making that decision, my deputy prosecutor, I've just spent the last two years with training. He's now getting up and running on his own two feet during an excellent job. A job opening, coming up next door to him, paid another 15,000 year. And the funny thing about that is they used my study that I gave the council four years ago to come up with the amount of money that they were paying deputy prosecutors so kind of stung a little bit that I did all that work. But thank goodness, bad for him. Thank you for making it work out for him, so he's still with us. But we're getting these openings. We're going to continue to have these openings every prosecutor in the state is like this. It's not necessarily that I'm a bad manager of people by any means. But you come out of law school, we get you trained up,