THE SHERIFF'S POST: AN ANACHRONISM THAT SHOULD BE ABOLISHED

Chatham County commissioners are again talking money with Sheriff Al St.
Lawrence, who proved that the fastest way to the public till is through a
Superior Court judge's courtroom.

Last week, a north Georgia judge who lives nowhere near Chatham County, and
thus is immune from local voters, ruled that the elected sheriff was
entitled to more revenue to run his department than what elected
commissioners were willing to give him.

To sum up Hall County Judge John E. Girardeau's findings: Show the sheriff
the money. Up to $2.3 million, to be exact.

Whether commissioners will hike property taxes to come up the funds, or
squeeze the dollars out of other county departments, such as police or
public works, is unclear. Neither prospect is inviting.

However, one thing is certain: County commissioners will never, ever have
control of the county's budget as long as constitutional officers, such as
the sheriff, can take taxpayers to court when they don't get what they want.

Indeed, these officials always have a trump card when county commissioners,
who set the millage rate, question spending priorities. It doesn't say,
"What can I do to help?" Instead, it reads, "See you in court."

As Judge Girardeau showed, these are the kind of legal battles that
commissioners lose. Or, to look at things from a different perspective,
such fights give commissioners political cover when they raise Joe
Homeowner's taxes -- the judge made them do it.

There's got to be a better way to make county government more accountable
to taxpayers. Fortunately, there is. The question is whether public
officials have the political courage to do something that's unprecedented:

Abolish some of the constitutional offices and put those jobs under the
County Manager's Office.

A good place to start is with the sheriff.

Each of Georgia's 159 counties have an elected sheriff. It's mandated in
the Georgia Constitution. And in 148 of those counties, the sheriff is the
long arm of the law.

But not in urbanized Chatham County. Here, each municipality has its own
police department run by hired professionals. So does the unincorporated
area. That leaves St. Lawrence to manage the jail, serve court papers and
provide courthouse security.

These routines are expensive. The sheriff pegged his costs for next year at
$21.6 million -- 11.5 percent more than what county commissioners were
willing to spend, which dragged them into the lawsuit.

However, there's no evidence that an elected official does a better job of
keeping criminals locked up, serving eviction notices and keeping crazies
out of a building than someone who answers to County Manager Russ Abolt.

In fact, the sheriff himself doesn't run the jail. A jail administrator does.

Unlike the sheriff, Abolt can be fired at any time for not doing his job.
Voters must wait every four years to give the sheriff his job review. Abolt
also can't sue his bosses on the County Commission when he's unhappy with
the amount of money it gives him to spend. That's no problem with the sheriff.

There's also the matter of oversight.

Last month, during a hearing before Judge Girardeau, County Attorney
Jonathan Hart questioned whether the Sheriff's Depatment's expenses were
unnecessarily padded with such functions as the K-9 unit, excessive
training costs and questionable contracts for services.

Nowhere in the Georgia Constitution does it say that sheriffs must have
police dogs. Spending extra money to train jail guards as police officers,
which Chatham County does, is a dubious expense -- especially when the
county is broke.

This is no reflection on St. Lawrence, a former county police chief who has
solid law-enforcement credentials and was just sworn in for his third term
this year. Instead, the issue is the position he holds. It's an
anachronmism. And useless.

Chatham County's legislative delegation would do the public a big favor by
pushing a constitutional amendment to abolish the sheriff's job here. Then,
the threat of future lawsuits between elected officials who disagree about
budgets would ease. County commissioners would be more directly responsible
for the money the county spends. Law enforcement wouldn't be affected
because existing police departments are doing the job.

For the Georgia Sheriffs Association, those are fightin' words. That
influential group helped kill a similar effort some years back to eliminate
the sheriff's post in DeKalb County -- a big-city place where,
incidentally, the former sheriff stands accused of murdering the rival who
beat him in the last election.

An urban community like Savannah-Chatham County needs an eleted sheriff
like rural Georgia needs kudzu. It's time to clip this post. For good.