Call it, “Your fee dollars at work.”
In one of his early changes in charge, Lenoir County Sheriff Chris Hill proposed and received permission to split the Lenoir County Sheriff’s Office Support Services Division into two units.
The reorganization necessitated creating a new supervisory position, with the request of adding a deputy sheriff’s position, which the Lenoir County Board of Commissioners approved at its Monday meeting. The cost to the county runs to $57,192 in salary and benefits.
It’s to be funded by the $30 sheriff’s fee people pay when filing civil papers — $15 of that fee goes to the sheriff’s office to improve civil process efficiency. It’s estimated the fee generates more than $60,000 annually.
Now, there will be a Process Services Division devoted solely to civil affairs. The Court Services Division will be responsible for courthouse and courtroom security.
“What I’m going to try to do here is pull the civil process away from patrol officers, who are out there trying to answer 911 calls and doing proactive-type enforcement,” Hill said to the county commissioners. “I want to give them more time to do those kinds of things.”
As it stood, five deputies per shift serve civil process papers, conduct transport duty and answer 911 calls.
One of the measures anticipated by the sheriff’s office is to provide for more patrols of schools that don’t have school resource officers.
The new division heads are moving into place.
“We’ve already made an announcement on those two,” Maj. Ryan Dawson said. “We’ve got Lt. Joey Briley, he will be the head of the new court services division. And then Lt. Robert Daugherty will be the lieutenant to head the civil process division.”
Wes Wolfe can be reached at 252-559-1075 or wes.wolfe@kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter @WolfeReports.