• But the shuffling will only be effective through the rest of this year and will not solve an ongoing shortage of deputies.
• The commission will take a deeper look at other solutions in a Committee of the Whole meeting scheduled for Sept. 15.

Background: Staffing at law enforcement agencies has been an issue in just about every city and county this year but has been especially acute in Johnson County, Hayden said.

• Commissioners have discussed it several times and last month voted to spend $4.6 million in reserves for retention bonuses for sheriff’s staffers and corrections workers.
• Hayden said Thursday that his office has not been able to keep pace with other agencies, most notably Shawnee Police, in a year that has proved especially difficult to find good deputy candidates.

What they’re saying: Because jail positions have to be covered, deputies end up working a lot of overtime, he told commissioners, but that has begun to wear on them because there is little choice about working the overtime.

• “I’m begging staff and the chairman to get this done,” Hayden said, noting his office is short 60 people today but could lose another 22 in the near future. “If I lose 82 people this county’s at risk.”

Key quote:“I can’t lose 82 people and still function,” he said Thursday.

Bigger picture: Staffing at the sheriff’s office has also become a political talking point.

• At a county commission meeting in August, several people came to the public comment portion of the meeting to offer support for Hayden’s investigation into the 2020 and 2021 election results in Johnson County, even as county and state election officials have repeatedly vouched for their validity.
• At the same time, many of those same speakers also urged commissioners to increase the sheriff’s office budget.
• The turnout at that August commission meeting had been promoted by the Northeast Johnson County Conservatives.

Another thing: The sheriff’s staffing issue also came up at last week’s commission meeting when Hayden objected to the county’s complex accounting system for handling federal coronavirus relief funds, saying money had been “run through” his office without his prior knowledge and likening it to “money laundering.”

• Some commissioners vehemently disagreed with that characterization.
• District 6 Commissioner Shirley Allenbrand objected to the idea laid out by some of the speakers that they were defunding the sheriff’s office, noting it’s been an ongoing subject they and the sheriff have tried to tackle.
• “Is there one of us up here who would not help the sheriff?” Allenbrand said.

Then later: At a gathering of the Northeast conservative club shortly after last week’s commission meeting, Hayden described the back-and-forth with commissioners.

• He added, “We’re going to come up this week and we’re going to ask for a whole ton of money from that money that they kind of hid and dropped into the county budget because I don’t want to catch up with the rest of the police departments.”
• “I want to pass them. I’ve got a whole bunch to hire and we’ve got a whole lot of work to do because these elections are hard to watch. We’ve got a lot of people,” he told the group.

Johnson County budget approved

The discussion about sheriff staffing Thursday came on the day the county commission also approved the 2023 budget of $1.6 billion.

• The published mill levy is 24.542 mills but that is expected to be adjusted to an estimated 24.568 mills because of decreases in some property valuations on appeal.
• Commissioners approved the budget in a 5-2 vote, with Commissioners Charlotte O’Hara and Michael Ashcraft voting no.

Roxie Hammill is a freelance journalist who reports frequently for the Post and other Kansas City area publications. You can reach her at roxieham@gmail.com.