CARROLLTON — The Carroll County Board of Supervisors has stalled on how to prepare for a prison accreditation audit coming up in October.
Sheriff Jerry Carver asked the board Monday to increase the salaries of the prison warden, Arthur Smith, and another employee, Vicki Noah, to prepare for the audit rather than paying a prison consultant. Carver said the two had done most of the legwork before the previous audit three years ago by the American Corrections Association. The final audit preparation was done by prison consultant Irb Benjamin’s organization.
Beat 4 Supervisor Claude Fluker said he supports Carver’s suggestion as a way to save the county money.
“If the sheriff has confidence in them, I don’t mind going along with what he wants,” Fluker said.
Supervisors Terry Herbert, Rickie Corley and Marvin Coward questioned whether Smith and Noah can handle the audit preparation without a consultant’s help.
Corley, who represents Beat 5, said supervisors had a problem with Benjamin having asked for a raise in 2014.
“Now you’re saying we don’t need him,” he said.
Herbert said, “We were either overpaying him or underpaying them.”
Coward said he remembers difficult times in the past trying to prepare an audit and wasn’t sure the sheriff was correct in giving the responsibility to the prison employees alone.
Carver told the board there is already money in the budget for the salary increases. He said Benjamin had told the Grenada board he no longer wants to consult for them.
Board President Honey Ashmore told the board he would prefer that Smith and Noah show they could do the work, and then they could be paid.
“I hate to pay salary increases, then have to pay someone else to get it straight,” he said. “They should show us they can do it, then be compensated. I’m not for paying them until they do the work.”
Carver said Smith and Noah are already doing the work needed to prepare for the audit but without any extra pay.
Fluker made a motion to increase Smith’s and Noah’s pay by $350 per month each to spend extra time working on prison files. The motion died for lack of a second.
Supervisors also re-elected Ashmore president of the board for one year and Herbert vice president. They re-employed Kevin Horan of Grenada as board attorney.
Other elected and appointed officials were hired without opposition, except for Buster Mullins, VA service officer, and Scott Montgomery, fire coordinator and assistant civil defense director.
Fluker made a motion to appoint Casey Johnson in Mullins’ place.
“I don’t have anything against Buster, but my district wants a change,” Fluker said.
Corley seconded Fluker’s motion, but the motion was defeated, 3-2.
Montgomery was re-hired by a vote of 4-1, with Coward voting no.
In other business, the board read bids for construction of three homes that will replace sub-standard housing — two in Beat 4 and one in Beat 3. Rio Winter of North Central Planning and Development District said he must advertise again for one of the three, since there was only one bid.
