When members of the Benton County Quorum Court raised questions about Sheriff Kelley Cradduck’s overspending of his overtime budget by $300,000, here, in a nutshell, was Cradduck’s response: It’s your fault that I didn’t tell you about this.
That’s not the wisest message to send to the menwomen for setting each year’s operating budget for the Sheriff ’s Oft ce and jail. But Cradduck may know he’s got history on his side. He’s not the fi rst Sheriff of Benton County to deflect criticism of his management byshifting attention to the unassailable value of law enforcement.
It all started at a Nov. 5 at a county Finance Committee meeting. Reviewing a monthly report on fund balances, members noticed the Sheriff ’s Oftce budget for personnel was overspent by a few percentage points. These justices of the peace did their jobs and asked questions, discovering the sheriff needs an extra $300,000 to cover his overtime tab. A single sergeant accounted for $18,929 of overtime.
Cradduck, who wasn’t at that meeting, appeared a week later at a Committee of the Whole session.
He expressed frustration the Quorum Court’s questions - you know, the ones arising from a public discussion about taxpayer dollars Quorum Court members are charged with overseeing - had come “out in quips and quotes in the newspaper.”
Cradduck, who took oftce Jan. 1, told Quorum Court members he has worked under a budget prepared by the former sheriff , suggesting Keith Ferguson’s fiscal blueprint (reviewed and approved by last year’s Quorum Court) proved too constraining for a Cradduck-led department.
At least when it comes to overtime, however, he doesn’t appear to have stayed within any budget at all.
“We’re producing more with less people,” Cradduck told the group. And more money, one might also add.
The message Cradduck delivered sounded a lot like the old Andy Lee, the showboat sheriff from the 1990s who rarely missed the opportunity to position his agency above all others when it came to county spending. We’re fi ghting crime, such arguments go, so why are you bothering me with useless questions about my decision-making?
Imagine the head of the Road Department or the county clerk appearing before justices of the peace, having overspent a budget category signifi cantly.
Could they get away with saying “The bottom line is these things take time and I have to pay the people to do it?”
That’s a bottom line, but not necessarily THE bottom line. Within the realm of the Quorum Court’s duties, here’s a more relevant bottom line: An elected oftcial who doesn’t respect the budget he’s given then blames the Quorum Court when his management of that budget comes up short.
From the outside looking in, it appears no one at the Sheriff ’s Oftce even realized a problem existed, or at least didn’t care to apprise the folks who authorize spending about the situation.
The Committee of the Whole backed adding $300,000 to Cradduck’s coffers, but some members pledged to keep a closer eye on the sheriff ’s finances. That sounds like a good idea for a sheriff who spoke defiantly and demonstrated little regret about the overspending and a lack of communication about it to the Quorum Court.
Opinion, Pages 12 on 11/17/2013