New jobs, new faces coming to the Sheriff's Office

In November of last year the Vernon County Sheriff's Office signed a contract with Greene County in an attempt to bring additional revenue into Vernon County. With the increased population in the jail additional staff was required, and this month a full-time transportation position was added to the Sheriff's Office.

In the past, transports have been done by road deputies, administrative staff, or jail staff, depending on whom we could free up. And there have been a lot of transports over the last year! Any time a felony arrest is made, whether the arrest was made by the Highway Patrol, the Conservation Department, Nevada Police Department, or our Sheriff's Deputies, the person arrested becomes the responsibility of the Vernon County Sheriff's Office.

When someone is arrested on a felony warrant that was issued out of Vernon County, the Sheriff's Office is also responsible for transporting that person from wherever they are being held, and taking them back to the Vernon County Jail. This requires almost daily transports from all over Missouri, and often from all parts of the country. Sheriff's Office employees transport any subjects arrested in Missouri or nearby states, but when a warrant is served across the country we use criminal transport companies that specialize in long range transports.

Over the last few months we have transported people from Washington State, California, Kansas, and Texas back to Vernon County. We have also sent deputies to counties in Missouri from the far north to the far south of the state. Having a fulltime transportation deputy will help relieve road deputies and jail staff alike. And the biggest benefit of all is that we have been able to create new jobs in our county.

The deputy selected for this new position will be in charge of all transportation from the jail to the courts, transporting all people arrested on Vernon County warrants, inmates needing to be transferred to the Department of Corrections, Greene County transports, as well as transporting or arranging all juvenile transports for the Juvenile Office.

Next week we will also begin interviewing for a full-time detention officer in the jail. With a full house, they have been very busy and the additional staff will help greatly with the workload. Jail staff are responsible for booking and finger printing people arrested and brought into the county jail, entering court documents into the computer system, passing medications prepared by the nurse, monitoring all parts of the jail including the grounds around the jail. The staff at the Sheriff's Office look forward to the new faces that will become part of the family and we will see to it that they serve the citizens of Vernon County well.