Monroe County Sheriff's Office Annual Report - 2009

Sheriff’s Philosophy: “Do the right thing, at the right time, for the right
reason....always.”
Leadership Philosophy: “Our agency exists to provide service to our customers
- the citizens of our county. We must ensure they receive the quality of service
they deserve, and pay for.”
The past year was, of course, a very special one for me. It was my first year as Sheriff of Monroe
County. I took the helm of this agency in January and since then the time has flown by.
It has been a busy year and we’ve made a lot of progress. I had a set of goals in mind when I
became Sheriff and many of those goals are well on their way to being met.
First and foremost, I wanted our agency to have a Strategic Plan which would guide us as we
move forward. I wanted the goals to outline where we are going during my first four years in office,
how we will get there and how we will measure our progress as we strive to meet those goals.
Toward that end, staff held a series of meetings to formulate the plan and to begin putting it in
Sheriff Robert P. Peryam place. We identified a number of areas where we felt we needed to improve, including communicating
better both internally and externally. Career development for our employees was also identified
as a goal, along with doing a better job of training people to meet the needs of the community in the
digital age.
Because we are still experiencing tough economic times, and have faced yearly drastic budget cuts, having a plan in place is even more
crucial. Our budget is currently set at below 2006 levels, and we have cut 58.5 positions, including 28 law enforcement officers, 28.5 support
positions and two correction officers. Without proper planning, such drastic cuts could easily cripple our ability to do our job. Due to proper
planning, we have managed to keep our performance high by working smarter.
Making the Sheriff’s Office environmentally friendly was a goal of mine. We’ve come a long way with this goal and plan to go even further
still. We have purchased a number of “green” vehicles including four hybrid Ford Escapes, along with several electric scooters we are using
for airport patrol. We have made every effort to go paperless as well. Our offense and arrest reports are all digital; Jail records are now
scanned which makes them accessible to everyone who needs them. They no longer have to be physically transported from place to place
with the inmate they pertain to. Our old records are being scanned too, making them more easily accessible and using much less in the way
of storage space.
Our payroll is all digital and all employees participate in direct deposit making the whole pay process much easier and using much less
paper. Our job application process can now be completed on-line, and our budget documents, arrest information, warrants and inmate information
are all digitally available on our web site.
In April of 2009 we began a county-wide recycling effort. Between April and December, we recycled almost 20 tons of paper, cardboard,
plastic and aluminum. This saved the agency almost $4,000.00 in the cost of waste disposal.
In an effort to reduce our carbon emissions and save employee time, we have begun providing training on-line. Law Enforcement, Corrections
and Support personnel who used to drive to a training location and sit in a classroom for hours at a time can now access the training
on their computers. We also cut hundreds of hours of commuting time by installing video conferencing equipment in all of our substations,
enabling our personnel to meet remotely.
Taxpayers will take comfort that our agency has proven itself to be fiscally responsible as well. We have managed to continue doing the
job of law enforcement despite drastic budget cuts. At the same time, we have maintained our high standards, achieving our seventh perfect
audit of our financial responsibilities. We tightened our accountability, eliminating multiple gas cards used for employee travel. We found it
was less expensive to purchase gas from businesses in the community than it was from County supplies, so we issued “Wright Express” gas
cards to everyone with an issued vehicle. These cards are easy to closely monitor, and a detailed monthly report allows us to ensure there is
no misuse.
We look for creative ways to fund our initiatives as well, in an effort to save taxpayer dollars. We have applied for and received numerous
grants; funds seized from drug dealers and other criminals help as well: we’ve seized $38.9 million dollars in forfeiture funds the past 10
years. In 2009, we began selling advertising on our web site, generating funds that can be used to help keep it up and running. You’ll notice
we also sold ads in this report to help pay for it’s production.
We are reaching out to you, our customers. We have a survey on our web site which asks you what you think of our performance. I’m
happy to say that so far, the responses to this survey have been overwhelmingly positive. We have begun using social media like Facebook,
Twitter and our Blog to deliver information directly to you.
As I move into my second year in office, I look forward to continuing to strive for more and better service from the Monroe County
Sheriff’s Office. I believe we must constantly seek improvement and we should always challenge our assumptions and look for better, more
efficient and more effective ways of doing business.
Monroe County Sheriff’s Office - Annual Report 2009
4