Shoshone County amends budget to track jail spending

WALLACE – The Shoshone County Commissioners amended their budget last week to accurately track spending by the Shoshone County Sheriff's Office.  

Last month, Sheriff Holly Lindsey came before the board to ask for permission to use funds from the county’s jail salary budget to cover hours being worked by patrol deputies in the jail.  

Shoshone County’s jail is designed to house 48 inmates and staff 12 jailors, including the jail captain. Currently, the jail is over the 48-inmate limit but only had four deputies staffed in the jail.  

The county’s budget is set to fund a fully staffed jail, which Lindsey explained to the commissioners had left $47,000 in unspent wages in the jail salary budget since last October. Lindsey requested that the commissioners allow her to use $12,000 of the unspent wages to fund overtime hours for patrol deputies volunteering to work additional hours in the jail.  

Last week, the commissioners, at the request of Shoshone County Clerk Lori Osterberg, added a new line item to the budget, denoted as ‘jail fill-in,’ to accurately track how much money was being spent.  

Commissioner Jeff Zimmerman explained that Osterberg’s request will help the clerk keep track of the money going out and will also be beneficial to the county during its annual audit.  

According to Osterberg, the county maintains overtime budgets for both the jail and patrol and was worried about potentially depleting them as well as avoiding the challenge of having to track where the overtime money was being spent.  

“In order to keep track of that $12,000, we’re going to add another line item right below jail salaries,” Zimmerman said.  

Lindsey’s plan to utilize the patrol deputies in the jail is on a month-to-month basis, where she’s operating as frugally as possible while the jail seeks and trains qualified staff to run the facility.  

According to Lindsey, her focus is making sure there is ample staff during the jail’s high liability times, including overnights, during dinner time, transport, and medical holds, and during times of high sickness.  

If after 30 days, the county determines that Lindsey’s plan is costing too much, they’ll reassess.  

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