Medina County Sheriff's Office seeks funds to hire deputy to serve child support warrants

MEDINA — The Medina County Sheriff's Office was asked to hold off on increasing its budget for 2021 to hire a deputy to serve warrants for child support enforcement. Medina County Commissioner Bill Hutson made a suggestion to Sheriff Terry Grice at Tuesday's meeting. "Maybe you could assign someone these duties, move some pieces around and budget for the additional position in 2022," he said. Grice said his department is down five deputies. One was after the recent retirement of Lt. Matthew Linscott, who handled much of the child support enforcement. The sheriff said he's in the process of hiring three deputies, but two of them must attend the peace officer academy and wouldn't be ready to work for a number of months. "Right now, everything is in flux," he said. "There are a lot of issues. We're waiting to see who ends up in what spot." The commissioners wanted to stress hiring a child support enforcement officer was of key importance. They were just reluctant to change the sheriff's budget at this point in the fiscal year. Budget hearings normally start in the fall for the 2022 budget. Grice's office is budgeted for 54 full-time sworn members and two part-timers in the 2021 budget. The office will receive federal assistance in the form of Title IV-D funds to serve warrants for child support enforcement. The IV-D funds will pay 66 percent of the staffer's salary and Medina County is responsible for the remaining 34 percent. Grice said there are currently 158 warrants ready to be issued. He said his patrol division was short-handed and needed deputies on the road. Grice said his office is currently about $80,000 under budget for salaries, which he hoped was incentive to hire the warrant deputy. "We're not saying it's not going to happen," Commissioner Colleen Swedyk said. "No one is against hiring this position." Commissioner Steve Hambley agreed. "That function needs to be established with as much vigor as before (with Linscott) with the right person," he said. County Administrator Scott Miller said Medina County has developed a "model program" for IV-D where deputies "go out and write warrants and make arrests for child support." Linscott's tactics were to show up at odd hours to make arrests, sometimes at 5 a.m. on a Sunday. "Chances are they are going to be there," Miller said. "People are hard to track down." The sheriff said he is budgeting about $77,000 in salary, benefits and uniform allowance for the new deputy. Health insurance would be on top of that figure. In the past year, the IV-D warrant server turned in 109 hours of overtime, which worked out to be about $13,000. Grice said he's currently not seeing many deputies that want to work overtime. Medina County Prosecutor S. Forrest Thompson said he can't advocate enough for the IV-D program. A program he devised will dismiss felony charges if child support in arrears is paid. "It's a remarkably successful program," Thompson said. He said to date the program has amassed "in excess of $1 million in lump sum payments" on child support, some as high as $22,000. The prosecutor said whoever is hired to replace Linscott will have some "huge shoes to fill." He said Linscott was a huge reason for the success of the program and for helping getting it off the ground. In other news The commissioners met Tuesday night, as well, as they hosted an American Rescue Plan meeting. Hutson referred to it as an "organizational meeting" to start the process to allocating the funds. "There will be no hard decisions (Tuesday)," he said. "We don't want to make any hasty decisions. It's a long-term process." The Medina County Solid Waste District has been experiencing some traffic backup with one of its commercial scales being repaired. Medina County Sanitary Engineer Jeremy Sinko said both scales will be open by Thursday morning. He said he is looking into replacing the concrete scales with new steel scales in the near future. Hambley said he attended a meeting recently that dealt with adding an interchange at Boston Road off Interstate 71. The meeting was hosted by the city of Strongsville, he said, because the city of Brunswick was not in favor of it. There is considerable traffic congestion at I-71 exits at state Route 82 in Strongsville and state route 303 in Brunswick. Commissioners authorized a 2021 Community Housing Impact and Preservation program for the city of Wadsworth to address local housing needs. Medina County Planning Director Denise Testa was added to the city of Medina's comprehensive plan committee as a voting member. Aaron M. Harrison was appointed to the Medina County Law Library Resources Board with his term expiring Dec. 31, 2024. Kelly Rose Stallard was appointed to the Western Reserve Area Agency on Aging's Board of Trustees with her term expiring Dec. 31, 2023. Contact reporter Bob Finnan at (330) 721-4049 or rfinnan@medina-gazette.com.