Commissioners approve jail fund transfer

WALLACE –– The Shoshone County Commissioners approved a $12,000 transfer from the sheriff's jail budget to sheriff’s patrol overtime budget.  

The move was part of a plan that was presented to the commissioners last month, when Sheriff Holly Lindsey came to the board to discuss the struggle she is having with staffing the jail.  

Shoshone County Jail is designed to house 48 inmates but regularly has upward of 10 more. A facility this size is designed to have a staff of 12, including the jail captain. Currently that number is at just four.  

Lindsey’s plans to utilize members of the department’s fully staffed patrol team to work additional hours in the jail, voluntarily, while still making their patrol wages, even if the additional hours are considered overtime.  

This isn’t being considered the staffing issue’s endgame, but instead a stop gap as the SCSO pursues additional jail staff. According to Lindsey, in recent days her office has received at least seven applications for open jail positions.  

According to Lindsey, with training, it could be five to six months before any of these applicants are in uniform and able to perform their duties.  

Lindsey told the commissioners that she would like to try this plan out for 30 days to see how it would affect the department’s budget, which is sitting on a small surplus of unspent jail funds.  

According to Commissioner Jeff Zimmerman, since October of last year, the jail has come in under budget by approximately $47,000 in just wages due to the lack of jail staff.  

“My intent is to not eat that budget up by overuse whatsoever,” Lindsey said. “We want to be frugal with the use of it.”  

The voluntary hours Lindsey is looking to fill are during the high liability times, including overnights, during dinner time, transport, and medical holds, and during times of high sickness.  

Some of these are times that can be scheduled for while others are situations that require someone to be on-call. 

“A lot of it we can’t anticipate,” Lindsey said.  

The jail has hemorrhaged staff over the years, including 14 total positions during the 2023 and 2024 calendar years.  

The entry-level wage for jail deputy is $21.22 per hour, but most detention deputies only last an average of 24 months, according to Undersheriff Lance Stutzke. This includes their training, so the deputy is only in the jail for roughly 18 months before they quit.  

In the interim, SCSO command staff has helped fill the gaps when they’re available, but that is resulting in a lot of people being stretched a little too thin for Lindsey’s comfort. She believes that by incentivizing the patrol deputies to get additional hours at their overtime rate, it should ease that stress in some fashion.  

“Whatever is needed, we’re all just kind of kicking in to make it happen,” Lindsey said. “We’ll keep doing that to try and keep the cost down.”