Sheriff asks county council for money to add deputies
He’s hoping to reduce overtime
Allegheny County Sheriff William P. Mullen told county council members Tuesday night that he wants money to hire two additional deputies.
The sheriff, who spoke before members of council's Budget & Finance Committee for about 45 minutes, said he hopes hiring additional deputies might reduce some of the overtime in his office. He said afterward that he hopes having additional deputies might also reduce the need to pull deputies from specialized units, such as those that track down fugitives, during vacation periods.
Council members are expected to vote in early December on a final 2017 budget for various county offices.
Multiple council members also questioned the sheriff about a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette series, “Missing Fugitives,” that began in August.
The series examined how probation and parole agencies in 17 of the country's largest counties track people wanted on violation warrants. It found that officers took about 63 days on average to arrest someone on a violation warrant. In Allegheny County, which was slower than all but five in the paper's analysis, the county probation and parole office relies on the sheriff's deputies to track fugitives.
Councilman Samuel DeMarco, who previously called for a reassessment of the probation and parole violation process, asked the sheriff if he was satisfied, based on the comparisons made in the series, “that the people in Allegheny County are in no undue danger.”
“The article certainly upset me,” Sheriff Mullen said, pointing out in particular that he thought a comparison between Hennepin County, Minn., and Allegheny County was unfair because their sheriff's office is far larger than his.
He said a captain in Hennepin County said the office there has 54 people devoted to tracking warrant violators. Allegheny County has 12 deputies and three supervisors on its fugitive squads.
“We don't have the manpower that other sheriff's offices have throughout the United States,” the sheriff said at one point during the meeting.
Council president Michael Finnerty said he was concerned after reading the series that officials do not know exactly how many warrants are currently outstanding in Allegheny County.
Sheriff Mullen said he was able to confirm 11,966 criminal or nonsupport warrants but does not know how many warrants are issued by magisterial district judges.