Sheriff brings change, hears criticism

BENTON, Mo. -- The office in the Scott County Sheriff's Department looks spacious and oddly different. Until the end of December it had been crammed with mementos of Sheriff Bill Ferrell's 28-year career. Sheriff Rick Walter, who was elected in November after Ferrell announced his plans to retire, hasn't had time to put his personal touches in the office, which now looks bare.

"When I got here, I had a desk," he said.

Filling the empty space is not high on Walter's list of priorities. Walter has begun implementing his plans for running an efficient sheriff's department. He follows in the footsteps of a popular sheriff who had left his imprint on the department.

Walter said he knew going in that there would be criticism. Several comments were called in to the Speak Out column of both the Southeast Missourian and the Sikeston Standard-Democrat accusing Walter of firing long-standing employees from Ferrell's administration and of wasting taxpayer money on new uniforms and new striping on patrol cars.

Walter said he has kept all but two people who, unlike the rest of the staff, did not ask for jobs.

One person Walter hired was his opponent in the August primary, Jerry Bledsoe. Bledsoe had been Ferrell's choice to succeed him.

Bledsoe declined to comment for this article, saying he was in the middle of an investigation and did not have time to break away from it.

Walter acknowledges that it may seem unusual that he hired his opponent in the Democratic primary, but offers that he and Bledsoe have known each other for a long time and he knew Bledsoe would do a good job for him. Walter said he and Bledsoe had talked while they were both campaigning and agreed that the race would not become personal. Both wanted the same job; both were campaigning on their strengths. One of them had to lose.

"He was a little uncomfortable at first, but everything seems to be going pretty good," Walter said. "His knack is that he is a good investigator. That's what he asked to do if I would hire him. I needed an investigator."

Some changes the new sheriff made were cosmetic, and drew criticism.

Walter said he had to re-stripe the patrol cars. All patrol cars have to have stripes to distinguish them as law enforcement vehicles, but under Ferrell's administration the cars had more than just identifying stripes. His name was on the cars and their license plates. Even the uniforms had Ferrell's name on them. Walter said he does not have his name on any public property.

"People in jail did not want to walk around with Bill Ferrell on their shirt," Walter said. "We had to do some changing there."

The new uniforms, he said, will cost about half of what the old green ones cost, and will be two shades of gray. Once the department has outfitted all the deputies with two changes of uniform each, the deputies will be able to supplement their wardrobe through their uniform allowance.

When he campaigned Walter also promised to be more efficient. He has not only a background in law enforcement, but worked for a while as a project manager for a construction company, giving him a background in managing money.

Walter said the money that used to come directly to the sheriff's department from serving legal papers and transferring prisoners to the state prison now goes to the county general fund to be used for equipment for the sheriff's department. The sheriff no longer owns the patrol cars. They belong to the county, he said.

One month into the job, Walter is working on fulfilling the promises he made during the campaign. For the first time in Scott County's history, he said, the sheriff's department has 24-hour coverage seven days a week. He said he made that possible by putting deputies on a 12-hour a day shift and did not have to hire additional people. That has worked so well with road deputies, he said, that he plans to implement 12-hour shifts in the jail and dispatch areas.

"They like the 12-hour shifts," Walter said. "It gives them more time off."

When the deputies are on duty for a longer shift, Walter said, they produce results.

Having 24-hour coverage is also what the deputies wanted to do, Walter said. The sheriff said he asked for employee input when he took office, and round-the-clock coverage was what they wanted. Employee input is evolving into a policy ad procedures manual.

Jail administrator Jim Bonner said he hopes the public will give Walter a chance.

"We have a high-caliber young man with a good work ethic," said Boner, who has worked for the Scott County Sheriff's department since 1993, first in communications then worked his way up in jail administration. "We have a new sheriff who comes to us with a different management technique and new ideas."