Sheriff's accreditation was to be a one-time cost

     A previous board of county commissioners approved costs for having the Carroll County Sheriff's department participate in a process to be accredited. It was originally supposed to be a one-time expense, with options for renewal and/or reaccreditation at intervals to be determined later. It was not intended that money be put into the budget for annual accreditation.
     The purpose for the accreditation, which was requested by Sheriff Ken Tregoning, was to show the improving training and qualifications of the department. The value to the people of Carroll County was that such an independent survey of the department would be necessary before there could be any serious consideration to grant primary law enforcement status to the Sheriff's department, instead of the State Police, which had been traditionally the county government position.
     It was the first step in what was to be an on-going dialog that might include further studies into the possibility of using well-trained and accredited officers within the Sheriff's department to create a county police force. No decision on that had been made, but it was felt that accreditation was a part of the beginnings of those considerations. At that point, Sheriff Tregoning had no objections to that kind of inquiry. His objections came later, after he got what he wanted in terms of the funding for accreditation.
     With the accreditation, and increasingly over the next few years, the Sheriff began adding staff, especially support and administration staff, that the commissioners did not include in budget planning. A pattern took root, in which the Sheriff made requests for funding based on one list of needs, and then returned to demand more funding for more.
     The support for the improvement in professional policing was mutual in the beginning, but over time, commissioners and professional staff in the county office building increasing questioned the needs for so many additional people, and for the on-going promotions in grade and salary and benefits costs.
     These legitimate questions eventually were depicted as a "power grab" and all previous cooperations were denied or ignored.  That led to the issue becoming just one more political football, and once again, the interests of the public took a back seat to loyalties to one side or the other. It became just one more popularity contest, or a bully pulpit for people with either personal or political agendas of their own.
     If the county is to continue paying for accreditation, the question that needs to be answered first is, How much does accreditation serve the public, compared to how much it merely gives public relations value to continued empire building by the sheriff's department?