Bartholomew County Sheriff Matt Myers will be making the case today for more jail staff. The County Council will hear the sheriff’s 2018 budget request at 1:45 p.m. this afternoon.

He said yesterday on Facebook that he wants enough staff to provide for drug treatment in the jail:

My goal before I leave the Sheriff’s Office is to have evidence based treatment options for inmates serving and or awaiting sentencing in our jail. I would like to see the old part of the jail partially used to treat inmates with heroin and Methamphetamine addiction. I’m not sure what the treatment would look like at this point, but I truly feel it would change lives and help the heroin and Methamphetamine epidemic we currently face in our community.

The current problem is that I don’t have enough staff to operate the jail we currently have opened. The treatment options we have right now in the jail are not ideal for a successful outcome.

The bottom line is, If the community member want treatment for heroin addiction in a jail setting, We must have increased jail staffing, i.e. corrections officers for it to happen.

I leave you with this thought, Do we just want the inmates to do their time, or use their time in the jail. I’ve talked with most of the inmates and they tell me they want to USE THEIR TIME do beat addiction.

At the County Council’s request, the sheriff’s department went through a Six Sigma evaluation process recently that revealed the immediate need for more staffing. That study showed the sheriff needed 11 more staff in the jail just to meet state minimum staffing guidelines.

The county budget hearings are ongoing this week and next at the County Governmental Office building on Third Street in Columbus.