Sheriff will invest $13,333 to gain $40,000 in equipment

LISBON — Columbiana County Sheriff Ray Stone will use some of his funding to obtain a $40,000 state grant to purchase equipment that will help his deputies communicate when on a call. Stone said he will use $13,333 as qualifying matching funds to obtain the $40,000 grant for small radio booster units that will increase the strength of walkie-talkies used by the deputies. The units will go into the trunk of each cruiser. Last summer, the sheriff’s office purchased the MARCS radio system for $191,154, with county commissioners borrowing the money and making the payments. MARCS — short for Multi-Agency Radio Communication System — was supposed to eliminate the problem of communication blackouts occurring between sheriff’s dispatchers and deputies when in areas of the county where radio reception is poor. “Even with MARCS there are still some weak spots in the system,” Stone said, which is why they applied for the grant to acquire the booster units about the same time they purchased MARCS. The $13,333 in matching funds to qualify for the grant will come from the sheriff’s communication fund. The sheriff’s office provides dispatching serves for a number of volunteer fire departments and some smaller police departments, with the proceeds from the contracts — $40,800 annually —deposited in the fund. Stone said money from the communication fund is used for radio equipment and to help defray the cost of having two dispatchers on duty at all times. This will leave about a $10,000 balance in the account. Stone said he originally approached county commissioners about providing the matching funds but was told to use his own money, which was fine by him. “I’m not going to give away $40,000 in free money,” he said. The sheriff has been unwilling to tap into his foreclosure fund to hire an additional deputy or two. This is the fund where fee money is deposited from foreclosure sales handled by the sheriff’s office. The account ended 2008 with a balance a $150,000, but Stone is reluctant to use this as a funding source to hire the two deputies he wants because foreclosures may begin to drop eventually and so will the fees, and he needs the money to pay for the secretary and supplies necessary to process foreclosures. The cost of adding two deputies is $113,000, and commissioners declined to provide additional general fund money for them and suggested Stone use the foreclosure funding. He used some of the foreclosure money to purchase three cruisers instead. “I’m just trying to do what I can,” Stone said. tgiambroni@mojonews.com