The recurring problem of keeping county law enforcement vehicles on the road is recurring.

"Three patrol vehicles in the shop out of 15 in the Sheriff's Office fleet isn't a crisis," Judge Executive Gary Logsdon said Wednesday (Dec. 1) during a special-called meeting of the Fiscal Court.

However, the court did approve transferring two vehicles from the county jail to the sheriff after Sheriff David Simon told the court two of the patrol cars in the shop "have major problems and high mileage and it may not be feasible to fix them."

Both Logsdon and Simon labeled earlier media reports that only five patrol cars were in operation as suggesting a crisis existed when one didn't exist.

"On the particular day of the report," Simon said, "there may have been more than three vehicles in the shop for minor maintenance, but I don't know where the information came from that we only had five patrol cars on the road."

K-105 Radio reporter Sara Benefiel said the information came from the sheriff himself after the problem came up at the last regular session of the court on November 16.

Logsdon called for another special session of the court on Friday (Dec. 3), a meeting held in the parking lot behind the Sheriff's Office, so that magistrates could look at all the patrol vehicles.

At that rare and chilly outdoor meeting, magistrates met the 10 road deputies and took a look at the 17 cruisers (including the cars security officers at the high school and middle school use) with odometers having a range of 100,000-200,000 miles each.

"We work hard to keep good cars for good deputies," Logsdon told the magistrates and deputies, "and we also work hard to keep taxes down."

He said two or three new vehicles "are bought every few years," and added that the county's fleet, while not as up-to-date as some cities and other counties, but such comparisons don't take into consideration those cities' and counties' budgets.

"The county stays in debt every day," Logsdon said, "for new cruisers for county law enforcement."

At the Wednesday meeting, Jailer Joey Stanton said he had transferred nine cars to the county since taking office two years ago -- five to the Sheriff's Office, one to the fire department in Big Clifty and three to the county.

He said the new transfers to the Sheriff's Office were Crown Victoria Fords, one a 1995 model and the other a 1998. Both, he said, had about 100,000 miles on each of them.

Stanton, who praised the current court for its support of the various county agencies, also offered to make inmate mechanics available to the sheriff when vehicles need repairs.

"I need these vehicles," Stanton said, "but the Sheriff's Office obviously needs them more."

Stanton said the jail would keep up the insurance payments on the two vehicles.

At the same meeting, Stanton asked the court to file a motion approving his fix of "a health insurance discrepancy on some employees."

He said that during 2001, some employees were erroneously overcharged for Humana health insurance coverage, while others were undercharged, some who no longer work for the jail.

The court approved reimbursing the employees who were overcharged, and passed a second motion asking the county attorney to send a letter to the undercharged employees with the amount they owed the county.

Stanton said he could not release names of employees, "but we have one former employee, for example, who owes the county $75, and another employee we owe $71."