The race for sheriff in Kalamazoo County this fall pits a two-term Democratic incumbent against the Republican who’s vice-chairman of the county commission.
Richard Fuller III first won the sheriff’s office in 2008, in the Democratic wave that took Barack Obama to the White House. Fuller won re-election four years later and is now seeking a third four-year term. Fuller has been with the Sheriff’s Department for 28 years.
Jeff Heppler has been on the Kalamazoo County Commission for 14 years. He's been the chief of the Galesburg-Augusta Police Department for nearly four decades and has been in law enforcement for 42 years.
Extra funding
Fuller recently asked county commissioners for an extra $2.4 million in funding. He says the money would cover five new road patrol deputies, two more deputies for the county jail, and another nurse at the jail, among other things.
"I only want these things if we can bring back the budgeted dollars that we currently spend in dispatching. And, in the future, if dispatching changes its model, which we're working towards, we will be able to bring those dollars back into the Sheriff's Office budget, or actually keep them in the budget because they're in there now, and utilize them for these other things."
The county is involved in a new authority that would take over emergency dispatching countywide. County commissioners have deferred a decision on Fuller's request until next year.
Heppler questions the need for the extra money, though.
"The need for more people in the jail is somewhat questionable in my mind. I have to, obviously, get elected to sheriff so that I can get in there and definitely get into the nitty gritty, the nuts and bolts of it. And part of my team would be dedicated to making that transaction happen, where we are in there and looking at how we can be most efficient and most effective a save our taxpayers money."
County jail
Fuller says extra staff in the jail allows the department to offer substance abuse and mental health programs that help prevent people from returning to jail. He says they also help keep the jail from becoming as overcrowded as it was before an expansion project a few years ago.
"So we're very proud of those things. And we notice that all this last summer our count was well below that 400 number. And we'd like to think that it's because of these programs. Now, we're going to work to make that we can prove it's those programs and we're not ready to claim a victory. But we believe it has a strong effect on the actual population and we're happy to get that number down."
But Heppler says he’d rather move the focus outside the jail.
"We don't have as many people in the jail. We can look at staffing in the jail, possibly shifting some of those folks to filling in road positions, as needed, on nights when the jail is less than filled up."
Audit issues
Heppler has attacked Fuller’s handling of money in the Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Department. He’s focused in particular on audits of money held for prisoners while they’re in the county jail. In recent years, auditors said that account could not be reconciled, something Heppler says has threatened the county's overall credit rating.
Heppler says, "It wasn't a problem before he came there, it became a problem after he was there. So, it wasn't something he inherited, it was something he created."
But Fuller says that isn’t true. He says the problem began long before he became sheriff. But Fuller also says it’s a problem he fixed by doing away with the old system that issued checks to prisoners for small amounts, some as little as 50 cents, when they were released.
"And so, when an inmate leaves our jail with a penny that's theirs, or ten dollars, or a thousand dollars that's theirs, they leave with a debit card. And that money is taken off our books immediately and put in their hands as a debit card. So that's been alleviated and I'm very happy to have been able to solve that issue."
Fuller says the new system took effect in May 2016 and has resolved concerns by the county’s external auditor. He says no prisoner money ever went missing, and that the issue never posed a threat to the county's credit rating.
Labor Department troubles
Heppler has also criticized Fuller for a $325,000 judgment against the Sheriff's Department by the U.S. Labor Department. He says that was money that could have been used for other things. Fuller says his department fully cooperated with federal officials to resolve the problem that he says involved scheduling of road patrol deputies. According to Fuller, the schedule that caused the problem had been part of union contracts going back 30 years that no longer met federal overtime rules. Fuller says the case was resolved in a way that minimized the cost to the county.
Police and guns
Recent shooting incidents around the nation involving police have some wondering if officers are too quick to reach for their guns. Heppler says those in Kalamazoo County are not. But he also says officers must be able to defend themselves.
"ISIS and whatnot is around. And we've had shootings, well, one down in Florida (to be) specific, and several others, one out in California most recently, have shown that there are those people in our country (and) in our area that can be a hazard to our citizens. Our police officers are our first of line of defense to protecting our citizens from those kinds of attacks."
Fuller also says law enforcement agencies in Kalamazoo County use their weapons as a last resort. But he says they also need to better document encounters between officers and the public.
"I don't see a police agency in the State of Michigan that will not be able to operate without body cameras within the next couple of years. And that's why we've gone forward with our investigation as to what we will do for body cameras. And we're starting to educate the Board of Commissioners to help them understand the costs associated, and not only the cost of getting the system but the cost of maintaining a system."
Kalamazoo County voters will decide the race for sheriff on November 8. The Kalamazoo League of Women Voters has a voter guide for this and other Kalamazoo-area races.
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